Author speaks to classes at Central High School

As a high school student, Stephanie Tolan would sit in class and pretend to take notes.

"Everyone thought I was a passionate note-taker, but really what I was doing was [creative] writing," Tolan shared with a group of Central High School students.

The author and playwright spoke to Jackson students in grades four through eight Monday, and to theater, journalism and English students at Central on Tuesday.

Tolan has written more than 25 children and young-adult books, including "The Face in the Mirror," "Ordinary Miracles" and "Surviving the Applewhites," a 2003 Newbery Honor book. Genres range from humor to supernatural to drama.

With author Katherine Paterson, Tolan has also written several musicals and adapted the book "The Bridge to Terabithia," written by Paterson, into a play.

In her first session at Central, Tolan focused on the process of adapting a book to a play and some of the challenges that arise.

"The Bridge to Terabithia" is set in a fantasy world, an imaginary kingdom in the woods, and much of the story takes place in the minds of characters.

Because a majority of the action doesn't occur until the end of the book, Tolan and Paterson decided to start the play with the ending of the book, an intense scene involving the drowning of one of the characters, and then go back to explain what had happened. A musical format allowed characters to express their thoughts without dialogue.

"It's very hard trying to be a playwright," Tolan told the students. "When you write a play, there is a director, there are actors ... You have much less control over a play than a book."

Tolan decided in fourth grade to become a writer and didn't waver. On Tuesday, she discussed how she wrote one of her first published plays, "The Ledge," as a college senior in 1964. Waiting until the night before the one-act play was due, Tolan took a pill to help her stay up all night, she said. The play, intended to be "intense," began with a young man on a ledge ready to jump, but turned into a farce; by the end the man discovers he has been drafted and has a new will to live.

"I have this passion for doing different stuff. It's nice having a variety so you don't get bogged down in a particular direction," she said.

Tolan is working on writing a different version of her book "Grandpa -- and Me," written in 1978, about a girl and her grandfather who suffers from Alzheimer's disease.

"I hope my writing has deepened over the years," she said.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123