Local author takes top prize

She is a 1988 graduate of Union High School.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
EDINBURG, Pa. -- Jacqueline Adams has always loved to write.
But it wasn't until recently the 34-year-old Mahoning Township woman found her niche in children's literature writing fiction and nonfiction for several magazines.
This month her award-winning story, "Aly's Discovery," was published in Highlights for Children, the 58-year-old children's magazine found in schools and on newsstands. The story won the Highlights 2003 fiction contest. There were 1,356 entries in the contest.
"I always wanted to be a writer, but I never really thought about writing for children until I had children and I was reading to them," she said.
Now daughter Joanna, 10, and son, Donald, 8, and their friends provide her with help and story ideas.
Idea box
It was Joanna who came up with the title of "Aly's Discovery," the tale of a young girl who moves to a new home and a neighbor, Miss Strawbridge, notices she is bored and lonely. The neighbor tells Aly about things a girl named Rachel used to do and eventually, Aly discovers the girl was Miss Strawbridge as a child.
"I just had a kernel of an idea about a little girl who moves into a new neighborhood. I didn't know how the story was going to go," she said.
Adams says she keeps an "idea box" of potential stories and dug that one out for the Highlights magazine contest.
She was one of three fiction contest prize winners who each received $1,000 and an engraved pewter bowl, as well as being published in the magazine.
Writing career
While this was her first time in the Highlights contest, Adams said she sold her first story to a magazine in 2001. She had recently completed a correspondence course from the Institute of Children's Literature in Connecticut.
Since then she has written fiction and nonfiction articles for numerous other children's magazines including Science World, Ladybug and Read.
Adams said she particularly enjoys writing about science.
"I loved science. It was a very strong interest of mine. I just love taking a difficult subject and breaking it down in a way that is accessible to kids and they will enjoy it," she said.
Adams graduated in 1988 from Union High School in Lawrence County and went on to become a full-time Bible instructor in the New Castle Jehovah's Witness congregation, but her love of writing didn't end.
"I still wrote as a hobby and said, 'Someday I will sell my work.' Mrs. Stephanie Fulena [gifted program teacher at Union] kept encouraging me to pursue writing even after I graduated," she said.
Another story
Adams has since sold a second story to Highlights about a girl who is scared to start school because her teacher has a lizard in the classroom and she is terrified of lizards.
"I got the idea from my daughter's friend. She was terrified to start school because she found out her teacher had a snake," Adams said. She entered the story in the 2004 Highlights contest, but didn't win. They did buy it from her, though. She said it usually takes about nine months from submission to publication.
Adams said she will continue to write for children and hopes to tackle a children's novel next.
"Looking back, the books that really touched me the most were books I read when I was a kid and a teenager. It seems like that is the most appreciative audience," she said.
cioffi@vindy.com