Broken by Tanille Edwards

What do you think of her music?  Her Book?

What We Saw at Night

What did you think of this book?

Interesting characters
Exposure to unique things such as Parkour and XP
Love
Abuse
Family Dynamics

TL Costa vs. Madeline Wynn

Questions for the Author

1.  Why the pen name for Daughter of the Fallen?

2.  Why was the book about heroin?  Do you have any personal connections to that substance that you feel comfortable sharing?

Shakespeare's Sonnets

How are the sonnets?  Name a sonnet in a post and let's talk in advance before the meeting on the 22nd of December where I really want you to come because I have a surprise for all of you!

Read the sonnets, write a blog post about one of them, and come to the meeting on the 22nd!

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Wow, how great it is to learn about Malawi and a young boy who valued education, even before he had it taken away from him, but especially after the fact.

It was very interesting to hear about the magic and folk stories that are told in Malawi in addition to the animals, landscape, and daily life there.

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_the_wind.html

http://williamkamkwamba.com/

NY Times Summer Contest

Just thought I'd share a great summer reading activity/contest with you all.The New York Times is holding their Fourth Annual Summer Reading Contest.
The contest encourages teens ages 13 - 19 to pick a piece from the New York Times and write about why it interests them. One winner will be featured weekly. The contest runs from June 14 through August 16.
This is a great activity for teens -- especially for those who are interested in journalism/editorials.
Here's the link to the article: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/the-fourth-annual-new-...

Samantha Durante's Thoughts about our Club & other info. from her

Hey Mary!

I just wanted to say thank you again for hosting me! It was SUCH a pleasure meeting with the Book Club - I'm SO impressed by the kids and by how obviously smart and talented they all are. Seriously, I've heard from more than one adult who's read Stitch that they didn't really understand what happened, but these kids were so on top of the story and had so many thoughtful questions. It was really a treat to talk to such a large group who has read the book and hear their reactions and share my experiences - I really can't thank you enough!

I came home and was so excited that I actually already put up a blog post about the experience - here's the link in case any of you guys are interested: http://www.samanthadurante.com/2013/04/25/thank-you-stamford-high-school-for-the-amazing-visit/

And for anyone who missed today (or who was there!) and wants an autograph, they should totally send me a request on Authorgraph and I can send them one electronically - here's the link: http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/SamanthaDurante

Also, for the teacher who was interested in self-publishing, she might find some useful resources on my blog here. I don't have a super-thorough step-by-step guide (though I do have plans to put one up eventually), but there are a couple posts on Kindle/CreateSpace/Smashwords formatting which are pretty useful - basically all the hard questions I had difficulty finding answers to (the basics are pretty easy to find online).

I also wanted to mention that Stitch is going to be free on Kindle for a few days in June, so if any students have friends who want to read it and are on a budget, that would be a good time to grab it. (And if they miss it - or have a non-Kindle e-reader - seriously they can just email me and I'll send them an e-book copy in whatever format they prefer.) I'll be posting more info on my blog/Facebook/Twitter/etc., so they can follow me there for more details about the freebie and the Shudder release and blog tour, etc.

Oh, and here are responses for the student who submitted the great list of questions!

1. If I could work with any author, I'd have to go with JK Rowling. I would just love to get inside her mind and see how she came up with such an amazing and imaginative world in the Harry Potter series. To collaborate with her and create a new world together would be a dream!

2. I have a long list of favorite authors - JK Rowling as I mentioned, Jane Austen, Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Christopher Paolini, Veronica Roth - too many to name! I would *love* to think my writing is like theirs, but I might be flattering myself! Haha. Though one reviewer did comment that my style reminder her of Suzanne Collins, so that was a HUGE compliment.

3. My favorite part of any book is the twist - I'm usually pretty good at guessing where a story is going, so if one can catch me off-guard, it will ALWAYS have my respect.

4. Yup, whenever I come up with a character's name - at least an important character - or am deciding between a few names, I always check the meaning. For example, Alessa means "defender" and her last name Khole (an alternate spelling of Cole) means "victory of the people." That actually worked out randomly - I just liked the name - but when I saw the meanings, that really solidified that choice for me. Isaac, on the other, means "he who laughs" which kind of fits his personality but isn't exactly related to the story - I went with it anyway, though, b/c I just really liked the name and it felt right to me. And then with the Engineers, for example, some of their names are related - like the Doctor's name is Eugene (which is a reference to eugenics, which is kind of his basic philosophy on life), and the Draftsman's name is Pascal (for the unit of measurement, since he's a physics guy), etc. But then like Janie for example was just always Janie - that name popped into my mind and I just knew it was her name. It means "God is gracious" apparently, which has nothing to do with anything, but I think she'd kill me if I tried to name her anything else!

5. My favorite thing about writing is just the experience of coming up with this crazy new world and being able to share it with others and see them get excited about it - it's a really amazing feeling, I can't even describe it. The toughest part is just making sure your story is actually good. It's really hard to see your own work clearly and objectively, especially when you're excited about it - I really need feedback from readers to help me gauge how well I actually did and how to get better (and sometimes hearing criticism is obviously hard, no matter how much I want it!).

If anyone think of any other questions, please tell them to send them to me! They can email me, comment on my blog/Facebook, message me on Goodreads, send me a tweet, whatever - I'll definitely respond and I'd love to hear from them!

Okay, I think that's it! Let me know if I forgot anything or if any of the students need anything else! Again, it was so, so amazing to visit with you guys today. It's really such a great club, and so good to see so many enthusiastic young readers. :-) Thank you so much for organizing! If you need anything else, PLEASE don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks again!!

Samantha

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Samantha Durante
Author of the Stitch Trilogy

www.samanthadurante.com