By Callum Ludwig
The newly-published Upper Yarra Secondary College (UYSC) students who participated in the Empublishment Project are gearing up for the public launch of their book on Saturday 23 March at the Warburton Arts Centre.
Prior to the launch of their book ‘Vignette: A Collection of Short Stories by Young Writers of the Yarra Valley’, some of the students shared what they got out of the journey towards being published.
Year 8 student Joe said when he first saw the Empublishment Project, he thought it would just be a short course that taught them a bit about writing, they’d write a couple of stories and then it would be over.
“I didn’t expect to go on for so long, that’d be a whole eight months of writing a full story that would turn into a whole book, which was pretty exciting to find out,” he said.
“It feels like it (the book launch) has come so quickly because the past eight months have felt so fast personally and I’m just really excited that my family gets to come and see what I’ve done over these months,”
“I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys or wants to learn more about writing because it just gives you so many skills that you can put into your work, like learning about world-building and discovering what’s happening around characters which I felt was a really good skill.”
The program was initially planned as a twelve-week writing course but due to popular demand and the momentum and enthusiasm the students brought to the table, it grew into the eight-month passion project it has become.
Year 10 student Steven said he’d always been more interested in maths and science and chose to do the course for something different.
“I thought it would be interesting to do something more creative like a writing course and whale it was a bit stressful at times, it was very fun and rewarding,” he said.
“I learned about how to create more interesting characters in character development because I recall stories that I’ve written in the past and the characters were pretty one dimensional and none of the characters in my story were super fleshed out and deep so t I think I learned a lot in that area,”
“(Facilitator) Phoebe is awesome, she’s very fun and very smart and I cannot believe how much stuff she gets done and how much she taught us and helped us out.”
Students delved into a variety of genres in the eleven stories that feature in the book, including fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction in dystopian and post-apocalyptic settings.
Year 10 student Jack said it feels like they’ve accomplished something really great, especially for their age.
“On the other hand, it feels really surreal and it’s something I don’t think any of us thought we would have done,” he said.
“If I had one tip for any future students doing the Empublishment Project would be to come up with a storyline or a timeline and then work really hard around that because the editing process was hard.”
Some of the storylines include a princess seeking a peaceful way to end the rule of a tyrant, a queer girl in a fantasy world who learns appearances can be deceiving, runaway princes and thieves team up in a changed-history adventure, a girl made of clouds learns how to fall, teenagers escape from a government compound in a post-apocalyptic and try to save their friends from body-stealing AI and many more.
Year 9 students Hayley and Ariel wrote a story together and Hayley said it was called The Runaways.
“It was about two sisters who got adopted into an abusive household by an old cranky guy named Greg and then they decided that they were going to escape,” she said.
“They make a whole plan and then they run away and the whole story is based on all the challenges they face trying to get away safely,”
“I’d recommend it because people that write stories generally don’t work on them for super long times when they’re our age, they usually just write them for fun so this teaches you how to be committed to one story and it makes you think about editing and character development and using different strategies.”
The project has been so popular that students are continuing with a ‘Write Club’ to held at the Yarra Junction Library from Term 2 onwards, where they held a number of extra afternoon sessions already as well as their time at school.
Year 10 student Anika also wanted to thank facilitator Phoebe Lines for all her help and work to help them.
Year 8 students Minna and Alice, Year 9 student Finn (who is homeschooled but came along to join the sessions) and Year 10 students Margherita, Minka and Maddie also participated in the program.
