Culver's English 11, Honors English 9, and Creative Writing

On Friday, September 19, Birmingham author Ingrid Seymour came to Helena High School to speak with my creative writing class. She spoke to them about how to get their work published and how to never give up. Ingrid Seymour is the author of Ignite the Shadows (Harper Voyager, February 2015) as well as the young adult novel, Keeper.  She advised students to  decide what literary genre they were interested in and to read everything they could in that genre. She urged students to know their strengths, and be aware of tropes (literary devices used in different genres).  She spoke of how to come up with an “elevator pitch,”  a synopsis of what their book would be about, and advised that before beginning a book, they should write an outline first. (Goes for research papers as well..., ahem.)  At the end of her speaking engagement, Mrs. Seymour did a drawing and Arianna F.  won a free (and signed!) copy of her book, Keeper. We were so glad that Mrs. Seymour made time in her schedule to come talk to our Helena High School students and we hope to keep in touch with her.

Speaking of visiting speakers, we also had a visit from Helena resident, Dave Sharpe, a couple of weeks back.  Mr. Sharpe wanted to help us get the literary magazine started and he has publishing experience working for the Birmingham News.  He came by and answered questions from the literary magazine staff during seventh period. We hope to continue working with Mr. Sharpe and we are so glad he made time for us!

A call for donations. 🙂  Our literary magazine, which we have shortened to Eureka, instead of Eureka No. 4, needs funding!  We have a bake sale scheduled for Wednesday, October 8th from 3:22-3:45 in the gym lobby.  If you can donate goodies to sell, that would be great!  If you just want to donate money to help us print our magazine in the spring, that would be fantastic.  Email me at jculver@shelbyed.k12.al.us and I’d be delighted to hear from you.  We were thinking of having a special page in the back of the literary magazine with a list of all our sponsors and those who helped us get set up this year. Please consider helping. Every little bit helps.

Any local t-shirt companies out there want our business? We need lit mag t-shirts and I’d like to make it a local thing as I love Mom and Pop businesses and don’t want to send our money elsewhere. Let me know!

And a final word—if you are interested in chess, come to Mrs. Culver’s room (A109) Tuesday mornings from 7:30 to 8. Student Sammy R. came up with the idea and would be glad to see you there!

Those interested in lit mag should come to Mrs. Culver’s room (A109) on THURSDAY mornings from 7:30 to 8:00.