The fourth grade writers behind this year’s Young Authors’ Book Project (YABP) are hard at work on their author bios!
Deciding what to say in our bios can be tough for authors of any age. Nobody can fit all of themselves into a bio, so we have to choose what’s most important to us. What do we need to include? What can we leave out?
Just like we do with other pieces of writing, 826DC helped break this challenge down into smaller parts. We asked the authors several questions to help draw out what they might want to share, including:
What are things you like doing in your spare time?
How does it feel to be a published author soon?
What has been your favorite part about writing personal narratives and poetry?
What do you want people to know about your community?
What is something you’re looking forward to doing when the COVID-19 pandemic is over?
Not every answer to every question will end up in the book, set to hit shelves this June. The exercise, however, helped the authors reflect on what they like to do, what matters to them, and what parts of their lived experiences they might want to feature in their bios.
Going through that list was also helpful on another level. After writing out their answers to each, the authors could then think about what other questions they wished that we had asked. The final prompt, “Is there anything else you want to say in your bio?” had some of the longest responses from the YABP students.
Sometimes, you just need to get in the groove before you can tune in to what you really want to say.
Want to see how the bios turn out?
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