Adviser Update
SPRING 2013
Page 21A
my f ancy
T H I S
S T R U C K
Covering Sandy Hook
I
recently wrote a story based on the Sandy Hook
Elementary shooting about gun control. I also
designed the page. The story discusses possible
changes that could take place in my school
district and the map shows the ‘escape route’
for students, which I thought was important to
include because most students had no idea what
safety procedures are at Kirkwood HS, which I
think is a real problem. I also created a timeline
with facts and information about gun control on
a more national level, with statements from the
NRA and information about Missouri gun bills that
would affect us in school. I included the survey
questions and results because they display how
little students are actually informed of safety
procedures and their opinions about teachers
NOVELADE
Continued from page 3A
Submitted by,
Emily Stobbe
News editor
Kirkwood Call
Kirkwood (Mo.) HS
Mitch Eden, adviser
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cyan
black
P04.V53.I4
from an internship when a truck flipped over onto his
car and killed him. The pain, sadness and isolation
of this tragic loss found its way into Miller’s first
novel.
When Miller was told by her agent that in order for
the book to sell she would need to rewrite two-thirds
of the book, Miller said she was totally freaked out.
But she trusted her editor and the editing process
and rewrote. As a result, Iris became a driving force
in the narrative where before she had not even
existed, the characters became more developed
and the plot more complex.
Miller stresses the importance of being open to
feedback and criticism in the writing process.
“When your work comes back covered in red ink,
take it in stride,” as part of the job description Miller
advises. If you are serious about a writing career,
Miller says you need to have someone you can trust
and whose opinion you value to help deal with the
uncertainty and anxiety.
A self-described literature geek, Miller enjoys
reading contemporary fiction but credits her
high school teachers for her love of reading
and analyzing the classic writers, Fitzgerald,
Hemingway, Melville.
Miller, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her
husband Jason, advises Columbia University
graduate students when she is not promoting her
book. She is currently in the editing process for her
second novel.
yellow
produce, because they wanted to reach out to a
younger audience, she added.
When it comes to novel ways to get people’s eyes
on her book, Miller is willing to engage in the new
and exciting as well as the traditional promotional
book tours. To use a cliché, Miller, who intensely
abhors them, “throws lots of things at the wall and
sees what sticks.”
With her Novelade Stand, Miller says she is
taking her book to sidewalks across America. It’s
a lemonade stand for books, complete with magic
marker signs and homemade cookies, and it’s
getting positive responses.
In each city where she sets up a stand, she
usually sells out of books. Miller also uses the
social networking power of Facebook and Twitter
to engage with readers. A book tour in Minneapolis
was the result of a Twitter contact.
Miller says she is willing to conduct workshops
either in person or via Skype to work with young
writers or discuss her book with readers. She can
be contacted through her website http://www.
byjennifermiller.com.
Iris’s journalistic idealism is based on Miller’s
brother, who attended an all boys’ prep school.
An editorial he wrote exposed cheaters who
abused the school’s strict honor code and criticized
the hypocrisy of a school which prides itself on
graduating upstanding moral young men. For his
idealism and outspokenness, her brother got bullied
by teachers and students.
“You didn’t see a lot of that happening in high
school papers,” Miller says of her brother’s outright
challenge to school authority. So was born a year’s
journey of gadfly Iris Dupont. According to Webster’s
dictionary, a gadfly is a person who stimulates or
annoys, especially by persistent criticism.
Miller, who holds a B.A. from Brown University
and an M.S. in journalism and M.F.A. in fiction
writing from Columbia University, backed into a
journalism career. As a punishment while growing
up, Miller’s parents forced her to know about current
events and to read the Washington Post, her
hometown newspaper.
Cajoled by a high school teacher she liked, she
became the reluctant editor of the Augur Bit. The
paper’s name derives from Arthur Miller’s “The
Crucible” and means trying to figure out truth from
falsehoods. With no real journalism instruction,
Miller found her high school stint as a journalist
frustrating:
“Journalism was a boring way to communicate
what was happening,” says Miller.
So instead after graduating from college, she
pitched an idea for a nonfiction book about Israeli
teenagers. With the publication of “Inheriting the
Holy Land: An American’s Search for Hope in the
Middle East,” Miller fell in love with reporting.
“The Year of the Gadfly” is dedicated to Ben,
Miller’s high school boyfriend who was driving home
with guns.
While Sandy Hook was a tragic national event
that deserves coverage, I wanted to bring it more
into the scope of the high school, and I think I
achieved