The Middle School’s second Literary Lunch featured author Matt Castleman, who writes under the pen name of M.E. Castle. Castleman is known for the Clone Chronicles series, (Popular Clone, Cloneward Bound, and Game of Clones). There will be three Literary Lunches this year, all hosted by the Tate Library and the English Department. All students from the middle school were invited to attend, and 16 students immediately jumped at the chance to meet this author. I was one of them. Being an enthusiastic reader and writer, I knew that I wanted to get as much knowledge and experience to get the best out of my passion.
Everyone grabbed a quick lunch of bananas, chips, and sandwiches. We sat down and immediately started asking questions:
- “How does your personal experience relate to the main character’s experience?”
- “Why did you have a flying pig in your story? Talking household appliances?”
- “How long did it take to write the first book?”
- “Did you always know that you wanted to be a writer?”
- “Which book, or which part of the book, did you like writing/reading the best?”
M.E. Castle answered all the questions we had, laughing thoughtfully along the way. When we asked about the flying pig and talking household appliances, he smiled and said, “I just wanted to make the objects as ridiculous as I could.” Everyone laughed at this, including the teachers.
What I thought was quite interesting was that M.E. Castle is both an actor and a writer. I thought to myself, did he want ridiculous (yet hilarious) objects in his book, so he could produce more drama? Is that why he likes both writing and acting so much because they both have drama in them? One of our questions was if he knew what the book after the fourth book was. (The fourth book is what he is writing now.) He grinned and asked, “Do any of you guys have ideas?” Soon hands were shooting up in the air, and ideas were bouncing around the room. M.E. Castle nodded thoughtfully at all of our suggestions, and said he would think about it more, after he finished writing the fourth book, or course. He said that he thinks that if everything goes smoothly, the book should be out in January 2015!
After answering our questions, M.E. Castle proceeded to read a part of his book, complete with accents, pauses, and lots of flair. We all cheered after he read a chapter or two. “This is the first part I wrote, even though that’s not the actual beginning of the book! I wanted Paper Lantern Lit, the book developers, to get a sense of what I could write,” he said.
Just then, Tara, the marketing director for Paper Lantern Lit, spoke up. “Do you all know about fan-fiction?” Some of us nodded. “Well,” she continued, “How would you like to have a fan-fiction contest for the Clone Chronicles series?” We all started to whisper to each other excitedly, bobbing our heads up and down together in unison. “We can publish all your fan-fiction stories on our blog, and the writer who writes what we think is the best fan-fiction story will receive some free books from us from other writers!” Everyone was very excited, and you could feel the excitement buzzing in the room. A lot of us want to enter!
All of us there, including the teachers, greatly enjoyed the Literary Lunch and have to thank the English Department for coming up with this wonderful idea, as well as the Tate Library, which co-sponsors the lunches. Ms. Hornik, the head of the English Department, said, “We wanted to provide exciting opportunities for students who love reading books or love to write. We wanted to be able to invite authors to the school without worrying about whether EVERY student would want to meet them and read their books. This way, the students who want to can read the books and sign up to meet the author. We hope to hold three Literary Lunches each year.”
I personally think that it was fascinating to hear different authors talk about their different experiences, and the different approaches and paths they took. I invite all middle school students to keep their eyes peeled for the third Literary Lunch. You really won’t regret going!
