As part of our writer’s fortnight course in English, we were given the chance to meet Hanna Alkaf, winner of the US-based Freeman Book Awards for her debut novel The Weight Of Our Sky. She came to our school and told us about her relationship with books, and she spoke to us about her background and goals as a writer as well. It was amazing to see into her backstory and listen to what she had to say.

Something that really stuck with me the most out of everything else was what she revealed about protagonists in books today. She showed us that in books from 2018, only 7% of the protagonists were Asian, a quarter of the amount of books with animal protagonists. She used a metaphor of a mirror to describe how much a reader is reflected by the protagonist, and she brought upon the question: am I in my favourite book? Obviously she did not mean this literally, she was asking whether we as readers can relate to the characters. Then she explained that many people of different races are unable to grow, seeing themselves in books, and relating with the characters fully. As she said, they grow with no full mirrors, and only pieces. While writing, she made her own  mirror for herself, because she could never find one as a young reader. Currently, she has 2 children, and she hopes that they can grow up with many mirrors.

A possible article idea out of this, could be about the choice of books that parents expose their children with. Every book sends some kind of message towards the reader, and a lot of prejudice can be formed from books, and the way the author conveys certain characters. Exposing children to a wider range of books will allow them to see things from various perspectives, and have less bias that may come out of reading the same kinds of books with the identical views. Especially since our school is an international school, it is important to have students understand the many backgrounds and cultural context of their peers. In addition to this, something more related to Hanna Alkaf’s talk would be about the importance of the sense of connection that can come from people, writing and arts. Allowing children to grow up in an environment where they have many mirrors will remind them that they are not alone, and that there are many just like them too, and safely feel included in a social group.

After we learnt about  her background, she gave us tips on writing, more specifically writing fiction, then explained the connections of non fiction and fiction when it comes to narrative elements.

Some tips that really stuck with me:

• Take advantage of idiosyncratic detail

Use details that add a new emotion to the story, in a movie, there is always more than one emotion.

• “Is it a story if you don’t feel anything?”

Emotion is what drives the story, it is what we connect to, and what makes the story memorable and special to the reader.

• Fiction and non-fiction are connected, in terms of narrative elements

Especially in feature articles, emotions, description, dialogue and details are all very important factors to a good piece of writing. I did not notice the strong link between the two until Hanna Alkaf brought it up.