Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Authors, and Cherished Readers,
I am delighted to relate to you that I am starting a collection of short classes about creative writing for high schoolers.
There, your learner will receive guidance, feedback, and educational materials about character development, as well as a helpful editing checklist curated for young writers.
If you know of a budding author who might be interested in this upcoming and ongoing series of self-guided lessons, please forward this information to their parent(s) or guardian(s).
My personal pedagogical philosophy pertaining to the art and the craft of literature is that everyone who writes is a writer, and every writer should feel empowered to call themselves an author. I want to give your high schooler a rare and beautiful gift: that of an audience, and of feedback from the perspective of an industry professional.
My late Grandmother, Marie Cacciatore, was among the first who gave me the gift of an audience, along with my beloved Mother. Every single thing that I ever wrote and sent her was printed out, pored through, and shared with her friends. After her passing, my late Great-Aunt gave me the self-same gift of reading and enjoying every poem I sent her up until the time of her passing. In every letter I sent – and they went out every fortnight in the USPS mail service – there was a poem, or a story, or a snippet of something I’d written.
It is also my goal to be the teacher I never had; the type of teacher I encountered only after entering university: the kind that cares, and listens, and provides gentle encouragement and avenues for expansion.
If not for my professors in college and graduate school, if not for my generous mentors, if not for the community of writers I had surrounded myself with, if not for my Grandmother and my Great-Aunt, and if not for my mother, I would never have been an author, nor a writer, nor a wordsmith of any kind. It is my belief they kept the fires burning in my soul: the scalding heat of millions of words all coiled up, biding their time to be written.
I want to be a catalyst for your young writer to become an author. I want to put them on the path to success because I believe in each of my students, and I see potential for greatness in each of them. And sometimes, the only spark a young writer needs to start calling themselves an author is someone who has faith in their work and who believes in their capacity to do great things in life and in literature.
I look forward to learning with you.
As always, may inspiration find you in unexpected places,
Caitlin Cacciatore
