By Abbie Mannenbach
Black Hawk and Sherman Middle Schools

Students at Northside middle schools, Black Hawk and Sherman, celebrated becoming published authors of their very own novels. These students participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November.

NaNoWriMo is a U.S. based nonprofit organization that promotes creative writing for people of all ages. They host the Young Writers Program each November during which students choose a word-count goal for the month and draft a novel. Black Hawk and Sherman students who were published completed goals of 5,000 words or more.

Mariama, a student and NaNoWriMo author at Sherman, shared about her inspiration and writing process, “I do a lot of reading so when I was writing the story, I read a lot of books that were in the genre of the book I was writing, like Angie Thomas and Elizabeth Acevedo, people of color who write books about urban fiction and humor. I read a lot of books and did some research in the dictionary for some words I could use. I did a lot of deleting and starting over. Really, I just had to figure out a way that doesn’t sound different from how I actually talk but still sounds more professional.”

After drafting their novels in November, students edited and revised their stories as well as adding front matter and back matter to their books. Students also served as designers for the covers of their novels. Six students from Black Hawk and 26 students from Sherman published their books and received hard copy versions of their novels.

Teri’ah, a student and NaNoWriMo author from Black Hawk, shared, “It felt good to get my book because I can touch it instead of just typing it out. I get to read it anytime I want instead of having to go on my computer to read it. I’m gonna check it out from the library first. Other people can read it later.”

The students’ novels will be available in the Black Hawk and Sherman libraries for other students to check out.