Monday morning all S2 and S3 English classes had the honor to meet the New York Times bestseller author Karen McManus. If they’ve expected a long boring reading of the book they must have been disappointed – she just presented a short part of her book about Ellery and Malcolm, two high school seniors living in a small American village. Unsolved murders, hidden secrets and a dead science teacher are the components of a gripping mystery, written in alternating chapters from the point of view of Ellery and Malcolm.
But no one has been disappointed at all! Karen was talking about how to write a book, how to become an author, and what she was confronted with on her way to be a famous author. She learned to be persistent, to be able to take criticism and she learned to fail. Persistence and hard work – that is what brought her to the New York Times bestseller list, as she said. She had to rewrite her book 10 times, had to sustain 130 rejections, but finally she succeeded. Such an inspirational story for students who just started their way into their future.
The students couldn’t get enough asking her more and more questions, just the time did run out, and everybody regretted this fact. Being such an inspiration and giving students a model of how to become successful – not just as an author, but generally spoken – this was one of our best authors visits ever.
European School RheinMain Library 