For the past year I have been working on a video project in partnership with South Carolina ETV called A Literary Tour of South Carolina, based on the South Carolina Literary Map created by the South Carolina Center for the Book. To be included in our series an author must be from South Carolina or have significant ties to South Carolina. The authors we’ve contact about our series have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic about participating. We’ll finish the interviews with this season’s authors this month and then we’ll begin the editing process. We plan to have the series ready for broadcast to South Carolina public schools for the 2008-2009 school year.
Our vision for A Literary Tour of South Carolina was to create a master teacher series for use in the classroom as part of teaching the writing process. How wonderful will it be for students to hear about the writing process and get tips and suggestions from such authors as Dorothea Benton Frank, Sue Monk Kidd, Mary Alice Monroe, Joyce Hansen, Dorie Sanders, William Price Fox, and Jack Bass, just to mention of the few of the authors in our series? To hear these authors talk about their craft of writing is priceless and will make a terrific addition to the classroom curriculum for teaching writing.
Today we visited Rock Hill to talk with a newly published author (her book will be out March 8), Misty Massey. What a delightful time we had and what a wonderful interview she gave us. Since our series is primarily for public school students, especially those in middle and high school, I was thrilled to have Misty a part of our series. She currently works as a paraprofessional in a middle school library; her comments, advice, and suggestions were right on for our target audience. Misty certainly added a new dimension to our series which includes many veteran authors.
Special thanks to all the authors who are a part of our series. Check back for information about the companion website for A Literary Tour of South Carolina.
