Meet the Writers, which began with a single school in the spring of 2015, has so far reached 12,000 New York City preK-8th grade public school children in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, with a particular emphasis on Title 1 schools, where a majority of students live in low-income homes.
Michele Weisman can remember back to a time before she became a book person. Growing up, her family preferred watching TV to turning pages. But in seventh grade at Baltimore’s Pikesville Junior High she encountered books like Animal Farm and experienced the joys of critical reading for the first time. Books became central to her long career as a graphic designer and art director for many prestigious children’s publishers including Children’s Television Workshop, Time For Kids, and Highlights for Children. “Middle school can change your direction,” Weisman says now, reflecting on how much changed for her when she began loving books. She’s made that realization her life’s mission, spending the last four years connecting 12,000 New York City schoolchildren with books and authors through Meet the Writers, Inc., the non-profit organization she founded in 2015.
In the auditorium at Hamilton Grange Middle School on West 138th Street one fall morning there’s a buzz in the air, the slightly unruly kind of noise particular when groups of tweens gather. As students pour in, each clutching a volume from the Olympians series of graphic novels about Greek mythology, they curiously eye the man on stage next to a blank sketchbook on an easel. Once they’re seated and the chatter settles to a low hum, George O’Connor, the author and illustrator of the Olympians, launches into a bravura presentation. Gesturing energetically, joking around, soliciting responses from the students, and sketching virtuosically, O’Connor quickly has the whole auditorium in the palm of his hand. Students are laughing and nodding along with his rapid-fire banter, and even the teachers, staff, and administrators standing in the back are charmed and entertained. With plain paper and a black Sharpie, O’Connor brings Greek mythology to life. After his presentation, he stays for almost two hours, talking with every student and signing every single book with a sketch of each student’s favorite god or goddess. Some more extroverted students joke around with him, while a few quieter children confide how much they also like to draw and ask to show O’Connor their work.
Weisman also works hard to choose authors in whom the students can see themselves, whether because of their background or subject matter.
The Olympians school visit is a perfect illustration of how Meet the Writers excels: Weisman works in close partnership with each school to find a writer who matches both the students and the setting. “There’s no one formula I follow,” Weisman explains. Instead, she pairs her knowledge of a school and its demographics with her extensive rolodex of writers and illustrators–painstakingly built through visits to book festivals and contacts with publishers–to make each match. She’s brought authors of all races, ages, and genders into schools; from the author of the popular Cam Jansen series, David A. Adler, to Sesame Street actress and author Sonia Manzano. Setting also dictates her planning. When middle-school students encounter a writer in an auditorium, a big personality like O’Connor goes over like gangbusters; for kindergarteners, an author may travel from classroom to classroom, speaking to small groups sitting on the rug and answering questions the children have prepared in advance. Whether discussing a sweet picture book or a challenging young adult novel, coming face-to-face with its author piques the students’ interest in a more personal way from words or pictures on the page.
For many of these students, Meet the Writers provides their first introduction to a real-life writer or artist and expands their world of role models to include the creators of books.
Weisman also works hard to choose authors in whom the students can see themselves, whether because of their background or subject matter, and the writers in turn emphasize how to pursue a creative passion and turn it into a job. Authors describe their different writing styles in accessible, entertaining ways-some are planners, while others are more spontaneous- and emphasize the hard but essential work of editing. Students are fascinated not only by each book’s content, but by the life and career of the author, and often by the publishing process as well: “How much money do you make?” they ask, or “Did you choose the picture on the cover?” The authors’ generous and honest answers clearly set wheels turning in the students’ minds. Perhaps some will become writers or artists themselves, while others are sparked by thinking about the business of books for the first time. Whether students consider themselves nascent authors or not, there is value in these visits for each of them.
Meet the Writers, which began with a single school in the spring of 2015, has so far reached 12,000 New York City preK-8th grade public school children in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, with a particular emphasis on Title 1 schools, where a majority of students live in low-income homes. It has also helped provide 4,000 signed books: one of Weisman’s main goals for the future is to be able to hand a book to every student she serves. From that first school visit in 2015, the program now has forty events scheduled for the 2019-20 school year, and Weisman expects that number to grow. Because Meet the Writers operates with extremely low overhead cost, it has relied so far on small grants and prize money, as well as the generosity of individual small donors. Weisman hopes an increase in funding will help her grow the program, not only in numbers of books but also in increasing the number of schools and students it reaches. In addition to the strong presence in elementary and middle schools, she recently began discussions with a high school, which would be Meet the Writers’ first. They are also hoping to add Staten Island and complete the mission of reaching New York students in all five boroughs. Meet the Writers is now actively looking for strategic partnerships with complementary organizations focusing on literacy and education–a recent collaboration with Read Alliance brought author/illustrator Ruth Chan to meet elementary students and their high school reading buddies.
“This feels like my small way of moving the needle,” Weisman explains. It’s creative act of social activism in a climate that too often feels hostile to the needs of children and the less privileged. Meet the Writers has also been a way to distill her life’s experience, from a career focused on educational publishing, to her time volunteering with P.S. 321’s author visits, to her term as PTA co-president at Hunter College High School. Weisman found herself craving both new challenges and new meaning in her work, and the timing seemed ideal as her children approached the end of high school. “I turned fifty, started running, and wanted to reinvent and recharge myself,” Weisman says, and with Meet the Writers, she has turned that extensive energy and dedication to the service of New York City’s children. Whether meeting award-winning authors like Jacqueline Woodson or Elizabeth Acevedo, both of whom grew up in New York City themselves, or writers who’ve traveled- sometimes across the country- to speak with them, New York’s public school students are enriched by one woman’s mission: to help them find the joy of becoming book people themselves.
