From September 4th to 5th, 2023, An Na, an award-winning and critically acclaimed author, visited Chadwick International Middle School to speak about her books and her experience as a writer.
An Na, a Korean-American children’s book author, debuted in 2001 with her first novel, “A Step From Heaven”, which received the Michael L. Printz Award in 2002. She published three other novels, “Wait for Me”, “The Fold”, and “The Place Between Breaths”, receiving over 30 awards and nominations. During the summer holiday, MS students were expected to read either “A Step From Heaven”, “Wait for Me”, or “The Place Between Breaths”, depending on the grade levels.
On Monday, her first day of visit, the entire middle school gathered in the Main Theater during Block 4 to listen to An Na’s speech and the discussion panel. In her keynote speech, An Na spoke about her life journey, beginning in a small town in South Korea and soon having moved to the United States of America. She expressed the emotions of exclusion, confusion, and uncertainty of identity that she felt as a non-white person who had lived much of her life in the United States as an American. Her experience of being the “odd-one out” in school aligned with those of many people in Chadwick, accentuating the importance of this school year’s main focus in middle school, inclusivity.
During the panel discussion, students who volunteered for the panelist role went around asking questions that had been collected previously from all grades. Through the panel discussion, An Na explained various aspects of being a writer, right from the inspirations that led her to write her novels to the endless revisions during editing and the painful publishing process.
After her keynote speech and the panel discussion, An Na had a workshop session with students from each block in the Black Box Theatre. Especially focusing on the aspect of character building, the author began with a story of her experience meeting a peculiar lady at a small corner shop, bringing out laughs across the theater and livening the things up before moving into building “round” characters instead of “flat” ones, through which students were taught how to develop realistic characters. Moreover, An Na specifically emphasized to students about writing out as much as possible in the first draft regardless of the quality. She expressed how the more you write, there is more to salvage, repeating how through the long editing process, her raw resources and thoughts eventually became her award-winning novels.
Students were also able to get their copy of An Na’s book signed by the author after the workshops and during, which was a truly exceptional opportunity. Her visit to the community has not only been an academically enriching experience for the Middle School students, but it has enabled them to explore various topics regarding inclusivity, understanding different perspectives, and other issues that are prevalent in both the Chadwick community and society as a whole.
For more information and pictures, check out Chadwick International’s official Instagram account, @intl_chadwick, and Twitter account, @Intl_chadwick!
Work Cited:
An Na, https://www.anwriting.com/. Accessed 20 September 2023.