- September 18, 2024
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Young adult novelist Tiffany Rosenhan stopped at Flagler Palm Coast High School earlier this month as part of her Florida tour speaking to students.
Rosenhan is the author of the spy thriller, “Girl from Nowhere,” which has no relation to the Netflix series of the same name. She describes the story as a James Bond movie with a teenage female protagonist.
She spoke to two classes of students in FPC's media center followed by a group consisting of members of the school’s book club and the Josh Crews Creative Writing Club.
Rosenhan lives in Millcreek, Utah, with her husband — who is a critical care physician — and their four daughters, ages 16, 14, 12 and 8. She started writing stories every day when her oldest daughter was a baby, but at the time, she said, she never thought of herself as an author.
Reading is the tool to become better, more proficient, confident writers. I hope you're each devouring every single book in this library, because they are your greatest resource.” — TIFFANY ROSENHAN
A political science major at the University of Utah, Rosenhan said she thought of herself at the time of becoming a diplomat in the UN or working for the CIA, maybe become Black Widow.
While she will never have superpowers, she said, she does have the ability to be in two places at once. That’s because she has an identical twin sister.
Rosenhan urged the high school students to embrace creative writing to better understand who they are and to better process their feelings and emotions.
“The stories we write are valuable whether we write them for ourselves or we share them with others,” she said.
She discussed writer’s block and shared an exercise to overcome it. Write five minutes a day with pen and paper as terribly as you can, she said. Don’t write digitally, or you’ll be tempted to make changes and corrections, she added.
When you’re done, she said, read it. You’ll see it’s even worse than you thought, but then you’ll pick out some glimmering words. Pull out the words that sparkle and discard the rest, she said.
By doing this exercise every day, Rosenhan said, you’ll be giving yourself permission to begin. You’ll move on to writing more efficiently. And you’ll begin to build a neural highway that “connects your thoughts with your ability and capacity to articulate them with a pen and paper.”
If all else fails, she said, adapt to what you would do if you were on fire. In this case, stop, drop and read.
“Reading is the tool to become better, more proficient, confident writers,” she said. “I hope you're each devouring every single book in this library, because they are your greatest resource.”
Rosenhan handed out copies of “Girl from Nowhere,” to students who answered questions, or, in some cases, they just asked for a book.
Jasmine Sites, the president of both the book club and the Josh Crews Creative Writing Club said she had started reading the novel earlier in the day.
“I need to finish it. I’m sucked in,” she said. “This book has pulled me out of my reading slump. I’ve read it through four periods and I’m halfway through.”
When asked what she liked best about it, Sites said, “The romance, of course.”
