REGINA – A group of bilingual grade six students can now call themselves authors. Students at Ecole Massey School worked with award-winning Saskatchewan novelist, Martine Noël-Maw in a series of workshops last year, when the class was in grade five.
“I imagine some authors just sit in an office all day, but we actually got to do hands-on writing,” said student Noah Greuel. The process of working with a published author has inspired Greuel to consider a career in writing himself.
The students contributed ideas to Noël-Maw’s latest novel, Le 13e Souhait (The 13th Wish), a french-language novel about an unsolved murder that took place in Bienfait, Saskatchewan in 1922. The novel explores the question of whether it’s really impossible to change the past. It was released today at the school.
“Some people could think that working with 34 grade five students could be a nightmare, but it wasn’t at all. They were all very excited about the project because they knew their creativity was taken into account. Everybody could provide ideas,” said Noël-Maw, who added that she fell in love with collaborating with the students.
She said the students contributed so many ideas, she is considering turning the book into a series.
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