Best-selling author Ms. Natasha Wing, paid a virtual visit to the Kinder, Grade 1, and Grade 2 students of Xavier School San Juan during the Author Spotlight activity held last November 18, 2022. The activity was organized by the GS Learning Resource Center and Reading and Language Departments, in line with the Grade School Literacy Month celebration.
Ms. Natasha Wing is best known for her The Night Before series which has now more than 25 titles to boot. She shared how the idea for her book series was inspired by a well-loved Christmas classic, The Night Before Christmas. Her book series has then included different holidays and events such as election day and class picture day. Her latest book, The Night Before Lunar New Year, will come out by December 27.
At the beginning of her talk, Ms. Wing briefly introduced herself as a skier, traveler, and a proud kitty mama to a cat playfully named “Purrsia”, much to the delight of the students.
When asked if she always knew she wanted to become an author, Ms. Wing was quick to answer, “No, I did not. I did not know until I was 32 years old.” Despite not knowing what she wanted to do right away, she recalled how her childhood was filled with lots of reading, writing, and drawing.
She also shared how she thought of wanting to become a paleontologist, the idea of digging up dinosaur bones thrilled her, or playing professional tennis.
This led Ms. Wing to describe a magical moment that had her thinking, “What am I going to do with my life?” The magical moment happened in a Christmas bazaar, as she browsed through the pages of another famous book, The Polar Express. It was at that moment she decided she wanted to become a children’s book author. She has been writing for more than 30 years since then.
Ms. Wing also graciously laid out her creative process to the students by saying it starts out with an idea, followed by brainstorming, then lots of writing and rewriting until the piece gets submitted to her editor for checking. Once that’s done, it goes next to the artist who decides how the pictures and book cover will look like. Once all is set, it goes to a printer and out comes the book!
A question and answer portion followed Ms. Wing’s talk where the students had the chance to interact with our guest author.
Xavier School would like to thank Ms. Natasha Wing for her generous sharing of time, the teachers and staff who prepared the event, and the student participants whose interesting questions made the event a success.
The Author Spotlight event may be viewed below:
