Workshop encourages YEC student authors

By Harold Gwin | October 14, 2008 at 12:06a.m.

The students had 15 minutes to create a fictional story based on sparse guidelines.

YOUNGSTOWN — “I just like writing. It just gets me away from all the stuff in the world,” said Freeman Davis, as a creative-writing workshop at Youngstown Early College came to a close.

Davis, a YEC sophomore, was one of about 40 English class students who got the opportunity to meet, talk with and write for Alexis Stamatis, a visiting, published author touring the United States to promote his latest novel, “American Fugue.”

Stamatis, who lives in Athens, Greece, is in the middle of a seven-week tour of college campuses and bookstores, and one of his stops was YEC on the Youngstown State University campus Monday. YEC is a high school operated by Youngstown City Schools and located on the YSU campus.

Ertuscan Press, a nonprofit publisher with links to Wilkes University and YSU, is one of the sponsors of Stamatis’ trip. Dr. Phillip Brady, YSU professor of English, is executive director and co-founder of the publishing company.

Stamatis, who has published seven novels and six books of poetry and writes for a Greek newspaper, found the YEC students to be performing “at a very high level” as they presented him with readings of previous writing assignments, poetry and a 15-minute creative-writing challenge during the workshop.

They are much further along with their literary careers than he was at their age, he said.

Davis quickly crafted a piece about a boy he called Rodney, who lost his mother to suicide and had thoughts of dying himself to be with her — but instead found the will to live in an airplane crash.

“I love to write,” said Shavaughn Blocker-Perry, another YEC sophomore. “I want to be a journalist like Mr. Stamatis.”

The workshop was both interesting and stimulating, she said, explaining that such activities encourage her to give more details to her writing.

“Writing is not one of my specialities,” confided Kyle Furtado, a YEC junior — who said he nevertheless liked the workshop.

The writing challenge began with the directive that the students must write about a person in a strange land, forgotten by many, who must find a way to get back home.

Furtado said he pulled an idea from a previous writing assignment in which he created a character in ancient times. He updated the story by making it “sci-fi-ish” with the main character teleported to the future, he said.

“There is definitely an interest in creative writing in this school,” said Jessica Schantz, community coordinator for Etruscan Press and an organizer of the workshop.

Stamatis’ visit is a part of a visiting-writer series, which is a resource to enhance writing skills and programming at YEC and perhaps encourage the students to launch their own writing club, Schantz said.

The Wean Foundation provided a $15,000 grant to fund the Mahoning Valley Diversity Outreach Initiative to bring international literature, curriculum development and creative-writing instruction and opportunities to YEC.