A couple of weeks ago, on February 15, I visited a middle school in Northern Virginia and met with two groups of 7th and 8th graders who are students in a creative writing elective. First, I just want to say how wonderful it is that this school offers such an elective: kudos to the administrators who authorized what’s sure to be a life-changing experience for the students and to the teacher, who is clearly admired and adored by her students. Second, I want to thank the school librarian for organizing my visit and for being so much more than a person who says, “Shhh.” I’m not naming names to protect the privacy of the kids involved, but Mrs. A and Mrs. H, you have my deepest thanks for a wonderful visit.
I decided to talk with the kids about where the real and the fantastical meet in fiction. For example, I showed them some of the real places that I turned into settings for fictional events, and I talked about how I drew on stories about the Spanish Civil War that people have told me but I also did historical research. Both of those ways of understanding what really happened in the past helped me create fiction about that time.
We talked about that familiar piece of advice most writers seem to get at one time or another: write what you know. And I tried to explain that even writers who make up fantastical creatures and extraordinary lands still fundamentally write what they know.
I asked the students to try bringing together realism and fantasy by choosing a place they know well–a place at school–and setting a portal there, a portal that opens into another time or place. They only had four minutes to draft this scene, and the results were astounding. We only had time for a few students to share what they wrote, but I was terribly impressed by their creativity and their ability to write lovely and evocative sentences. It turns out that there is lots of potential for magic in a middle school, at least when good writers are in charge.
It was such a treat to share my experience with these young writers, partly because it was so fun to talk about my process and my books but mostly because it was so thrilling to meet the people who will write the essays, poems, and novels that will change the world one day. We live at a time when too many people forget how necessary books are. We use literature to know ourselves, to make sense of things that happen to us, and to build our world. The world needs writers more than it knows, but these kids know. And I know, and you do, too.