Young-Adult Author Jake Halpern Speaks to the Middle School

Jake Halpern, journalist and author of the Dormia young-adult book series, spoke to Newman’s Middle School about writing and the story-telling process on Tuesday, April 5. As part of a special assembly, Middle school students packed the Henson auditorium to listen to the author speak about his books, his life, and writing.

He stared the talk with a game where he would tell a story that was all true except for one detail. He told the story of meeting his wife’s family in Poland and a scary walk through a dark and cold forest. Though many of the details were hard to believe – a sleigh ride from the train to a house, a sinewy woodsman using an axe to cut ice from the river, and so on – all of the events were true except for one detail. He explained that in order to write convincing fiction, writers must use real experiences to make their prose believable, and only occasionally add fictional details.

He then gave an example of turning this true story into the opening pages of his book, Dormia, a fantasy novel set in the Ural Mountains of Russia. Once he had captured the audience’s attention with believable details, he set up a cliffhanger, and it turned out that the whole story was a clever “trailer” for his book. It was an impressive lesson in storytelling, with a pinch of marketing at the end!

After the talk, Mr. Halpern visited a 7th grade class and discussed writing and his upcoming book. The talk quickly turned into a question-and-answer session, where he addressed questions about how he develops characters, how long it takes to write a book, how he keeps from getting bored while writing, and what was his favorite book. He was so impressed with the students’ probing questions that he thought that they would make good copyeditors for his upcoming book, Shadow Tree. He promised to send an advance copy to the students so that they could proof it before publication.

About Jake Halpern, from his website: