Many authors wander back into their elementary schools to wax nostalgic and talk about the writing life.
Madeleine Singh waited for nine months. Madeleine is self-published through CreateSpace, an Amazon company, that smooths the way for low-overhead authors like the 12-year-old sixth-grader at Stanley Middle School in Lafayette.
When Madeleine was younger, the Burton Valley Elementary book fair inspired her to sit down and write stories and eventually books. This week she returned to the book fair and autographed her books for elementary school kids.
Madeleine has published
- her favorite ("… maybe"), Snowflakes in Paradise, the tale of Anika's 11th birthday, when it snowed in Acapulco.
- The Legend of Solarman, the tale of an alien crashing to Earth in 1935.
Snowflakes in Paradise took all summer to write, Madeleine said, in between swim practices with the Sun Valley Rays swim club.
Now in the editing process and perhaps headed for publication next summer is Pals With Paws (working title), about a group of girls rescuing stray dogs. Madeleine — who has a beloved golden doodle named Teddy — has gone canine-literary in the style of her favorite author, Suzanne Selfors.
The paperback books are retailing for $5.99 and, Madeleine said, she gets $1.18 for each book sold.
Madeleine gave autographed copies of her two published books to her former teachers at Burton Valley. Teachers prepared the students for the assembly by reading passages aloud in class, said Principal Sue Rusk.
Speaking at the Burton Valley assembly on Wednesday, Madeleine responded to a question this way, "Most of the time ideas just come to you. It can be based on anything because it's a book — it's fiction, not nonfiction — and you can write about anything you want. It's actually pretty easy but sometimes when you're pretty far in, it can seem like the story is boring …
"And yeah, thanks for listening," she concluded her talk at the assembly.
