A poster for an author event with Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal is displayed in the CCHS hallways on Feb. 11. CCHS Media Specialists Angie Pendley and MaryAnn Sullivan are hosting the event in CCHS’ Mell Auditorium on Feb. 12, and freshman Miracle Robbins is excited for the event. “(These events are important because) some people, they’re not very educated about (writing a book), and it is good to be educated about it,” Robbins said. Photo by Luna Reichert
The Clarke Central High School Media Specialists will be hosting an author event on Feb. 12 with the authors of “I’m Not Dying With You Tonight,” Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal.
Clarke Central High School Media Specialists Angie Pendley and MaryAnn Sullivan will host a question and answer event with the authors of “I’m Not Dying With You Tonight,” Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal. The event will be held in the Mell Auditorium on Feb. 12.
According to Pendley, during author events, the authors who are presenting will give a promotional presentation about their book and then open the floor up for student questions.
“Most authors have a prepared presentation that lasts usually about 30 to 40 minutes, where they talk about themselves as an author and then usually their books in general. The (authors then) open it up to a question and answer session,” Pendley said. “I will say, in the two previous author events that we’ve had this year, I’ve been super impressed with the caliber of questions that our Clarke Central students have asked. It shows me that our students are taking this event seriously.”
Pendley says she messaged the authors via Instagram to ask them to come to CCHS. The choice of these two authors was made by the CCHS’ Strong Girls Book Club.
“So Kimberly Jones responded (to our message), and she gave me her booking agent’s information, and then Gilly Segal has her contact information on her website, so I just emailed her and put (the event) in motion,” Pendley said. “I emailed back and forth a few times with their booking agents and that all worked out, and I got (CCHS principal) Dr. Huff’s approval Christmas break and here we are.”
CCHS freshman Miracle Robbins plans on attending the event, and she believes that authors like Jones and Segal can motivate students to become authors themselves.
“Some authors are inspiring. Most people in the school, they want to be authors– future authors that write books,” Robbins said. “I feel like if (Jones and Segal) give them advice, it’ll help them.”
Pendley believes that there will be a large crowd in attendance because of the way students have been invited to the event.
“I hope it will be a big turnout and currently, the way that we are handling it is tickets will be distributed through English classes and each English teacher has the opportunity to submit 10 students to receive tickets,” Pendley said. “In addition to that, I believe that (all of) Mr. Ash’s (Writers Workshop) class will attend and potentially Ms. McNeeley’s Multicultural Lit class will attend, so we’ve got a couple of whole classes that will be invited. Hopefully, that will get us a pretty big crowd in the auditorium.”
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