Students from MHS and other Rockwood schools will have a chance to see Rosaria Munda, author of “Fireborne,” Nov. 8 and 9. 

Her fantasy novel focuses around two orphans in a post-apocalyptic world who are dragon riders competing for a spot in the dragon fleet.

Munda, who said she loves meeting students since she debuted as an author in 2019, is eager to start doing presentations at schools for students again this year. 

“I’m excited. It’s my first in-person school visit since the pandemic,” Munda said. 

She plans to talk about some of the inspirations of the book, ideas that she came up with while writing the book, problems she faced and pop culture examples to help illustrate the book. If there’s time, she also plans on talking about how to get published. 

Greg Buam, librarian at Rockwood Summit, arranged the three authors to visit all four rockwood schools over the course of the 2021-2022 school year. 

Fred Venturini, author of “The Escape of Light”, is also excited for his visit on Feb. 28 and March 1. 

He pitches his book as “‘The Fault in Our Stars’, but with a burn survivor and some basketball.” He plans to touch on topics like resilience, which is how much pain and disappointment one can absorb and keep moving forward.

“I always talk about resilience,” Venturini said. “I think it’s the key element in writing stories, and the keystone habit for a successful life.”

Brittany Sharitz, librarian, said these book talks are a good opportunity for students to further their craft of reading and writing. 

“We hope that for students that might be kinda reluctant readers, that haven’t always found books that they are interested in, hearing an author talk about the ideas that they had and turning those into writing,” Sharitz said. “It can really pique an interest in reading.” 

Mindy McGinnis, author, visited MHS in September to talk about her novel “Heroine”. The story focuses on Mickey, a female athlete, who ends up suffering a leg injury from a car accident, which leads her to take pain medicine and become addicted.

Her presentation centered around her book and her research over its topics, as well as the opioid epidemic that surrounds America today, which she aims to start a conversation on with the students. 

 “It’s important for people to continue to be aware of the opioid epidemic, even when COVID and politics is what the news is covering now.” McGinnis said.

McGinnis presented to four Language Arts and one Creative Writing class during their 6th hour, and said it went great, and that she is happy to be out in the world again. 

Alexis Kossmann, junior, attended the presentation with her 6th hour Language Arts class. She said she really enjoyed it and thought McGinnis did a great job. 

“Mindy McGinnis became a personal role model for me as she seemed to have such a strong voice.” Kossmann said.