Middle School Writer’s Symposium with Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes

This month Overlake hosted Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes, the award-winning author of several books for youth including the New York Times bestsellers Ghost Boys and Black Brother, Black Brother. She is also the author of Paradise on Fire, Towers Falling, and the celebrated Louisiana Girls’ Trilogy: Ninth Ward, Sugar, and Bayou Magic. 

Dr. Rhodes worked with the seventh grade English classes leading a workshop on finding your “Character voice”. She described it as the foundation to her writing. “I can’t write anything unless I can hear the character’s voice,” Dr. Rhodes says. After reading some passages from her books, she encouraged students to think about what the character is thinking and the perspective they are coming from and how that relates to the plot. 

She went on to say that a good story arc doesn’t just have a single high point but rather the story arc looks more like an EKG. It rises and falls in a rhythm with many high points and several setbacks for the main character, but what will ultimately make or break a story, is a well-developed character voice. “Writing a story with character driven technique, you’ll write a story no one will put down!”

Dr. Rhodes also spoke to the entire Middle School sharing her experience as a writer and her journey along the way. She described working with different editors and publishers who would ask her to edit parts out of her stories trying to downplay controversy, but she felt those parts were authentic to the story and had to stand up for her work. She encouraged students to always live authentically in everything they do. 

To find out more about Dr. Rhodes, her work, and which books you can check out at the Overlake library, read more here.