NEW ROCHELLE, NY — On Monday, April 18, 2016, the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence will host its inaugural Authors Out Loud celebration at New Rochelle High School. This groundbreaking program concludes a weeks-long writing initiative and introduces students to three distinguished visiting authors, all New Rochelle High School alumni.
Authors Out Loud builds on the outsize success of Poetry Out Loud and Arts Out Loud, Fund programs serving the district’s elementary and middle school students. Poetry Out Loud, an initiative in place for 18 years, invites children in grades 3-6 to write original poems and read them in front of an audience of family, friends, and community members.
Arts Out Loud, launched last year, encourages students in 7th and 8th grade to delve into poetry, fine art, and music composition. Both “Out Loud” programs offer critical outlets for self-expression, and now with Authors Out Loud, this far-reaching platform expands to the high school.
In preparation for this event, students will write short stories using prompts from the visiting authors’ and E.L. Doctorow’s books. They will also work in groups, adding their voice to a single story inspired by a prompt.
The visiting authors are: Colin Hagendorf (author of Slice Harvester: A Memoir In Pizza, an NPR’s best book of 2015, ’01), Rachel Vail (author of more than 30 books including, Unfriended, If We Kiss, and Kiss Me Again, ’84) and Allen Paul Weaver III (author of the Speedsuit Powers Trilogy, ’92).
Authors Out Loud Details:
Date:
Monday, April 18th, 2016
Time:
11:30am – Visiting authors arrive for lunch with students and faculty
1:30pm – Visiting authors participate in panel discussion
Location:
New Rochelle High School
265 Clove Road
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Note: The panel discussion begins with theater students reading short stories inspired by various written prompts. Authors Out Loud is part of New Rochelle’s E.L. Doctorow Living Legacy Initiative and was created in partnership with the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence’s Jeremy Scheinfeld Publishing Center and a committee made up of representatives from the New Rochelle Council on the Arts, the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence, and the City of New Rochelle, plus City Historian Barbara Davis