How lucky are we to have staff like this that go above and beyond!!!! Teacher plumbs nonfiction of fiction Teacher Bob Ellis/staff photographer Cortland Junior High School English teacher Mike Winchell is working on a two volume anthology that explores how authors fold their own life experiences into the fiction they write. By EMMETT NENO Staff Reporter [email protected] When reading a novel, it can be tempting to wonder how much of the narrative was inspired by the author’s own experiences. Cortland Junior High English teacher Mike Winchell has decided to answer that question, showing the direct connection between an author’s actual experience and a fictional story he or she writes based upon it. “Unless you recognize that real life can be used (in writing a story), you don’t really know what to write about,” he said in an interview. “That’s why I have so many students who say, ‘I don’t know what to write about.’ The first thing is what do you do, what’s your life about?” Winchell has turned the idea into an anthology of two volumes featuring work from 38 award-winning authors as well as his own contributions. His first volume will be published between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, he said. The second volume is scheduled for release six months after the publication of the first, Winchell said. Authors in the anthology include New York Times best-selling authors Tim Green, Michael Buckley and Linda Sue Park, as well as local authors Bruce Coville and Ellen Yeomans. Last July, Winchell conceived the idea for this project when, as a result of the new Common Core focus, he began looking for fiction and nonfiction works that were related but found just low-quality samples. “So, I started to think, ‘Wow, there’s a big void in the market here for fiction and nonfiction that are related by accomplished authors, like names you know,’” he said. Upon contacting authors to see who was interested in participating in the project, Winchell discovered a great deal of interest. In an email message, Coville said he was excited when he heard about this project because he enjoys working with upstate authors such as Winchell and sees this anthology as an opportunity to illustrate the balance between real life and fiction. “Often, a beginning writer will say of something in a story that isn’t working, ‘But that’s the way it really happened!’ as if that will somehow magically make the story work,” he said. “But reality and story logic are two different things.” Park, who also commented via email, said the boundary between real life and her fiction is often ambiguous. She views the anthology as a way for her to clarify the writing process for herself and for others. “I want young people to know that writing is not some hazy undefinable mystery,” she said. “It’s craft and hard work, and each writer has to find the way that works for them best.” Park sent half her contribution to him immediately so he could use her material as part of the proposal he sent to publishers, Winchell said. In all, without being paid first, five authors gave him samples to submit to publishers, he said. Publishers shot down the concept because they were afraid it was too similar to a textbook and would not sell well in the trade market, he said. In response, Winchell adapted the proposed books so that they would have a kid-friendly focus, with the first one titled “Family, Friends, Enemies, and Frenemies” and the second “School Dazed.” Shortly after he made the change, Winchell received word from Grosset and Dunlap, who imprint books under the Penguin name, that the company was interested in publishing the anthology. “It’s not a textbook at all,” Winchell said. “It’s a collection of high-quality fiction, but nonfiction shows what it was based on, shows the inspiration behind it.” At the same time, Winchell recognized that teachers need quality nonfiction to study in their classrooms and realized the Common Core places a new focus on close reading, especially that of analyzing visuals or studying what composes the visual, he said. Since some of the authors working on the project also are illustrators, Winchell discussed with them the possibility of having symbolic artwork between the fiction and nonfiction pieces so teachers could analyze them with their classes. When the anthology is complete, Winchell plans to add another educational aspect to the project by posting on the project’s website pages containing information on the authors and interviews with them as well as videos and free educational materials for teachers. In the meantime, Winchell is editing the entries he has from authors since he must give to his editor the complete first book by the end of October. He envisions adding another two books to the anthology since his original proposal to publishers included three or four books instead of just the two and hopes readers will be entertained as they learn about the process of turning real life to fiction, he said. “In this modern day, education seems to be moving away from creativity a lot, and I think this kind of gets lost on kids that real life, nonfiction, can become fiction,” Winchell said. “That’s the big part of creating fiction.”
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 17:18:43 +0000
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