WRITERS AT LITERATURE FESTIVAL INSPIRE STUDENTS

Morgan Dambach is eager to reread "Rimwalkers" now that she knows events from it were based on author Vicki Grove's life.

Dambach, a fifth-grader at May Greene School learned this fact Thursday at the Children/Young Adults' Literature Festival where Grove spoke. At the festival, which continues today at Southeast Missouri State University, authors Grove, Gary Bowen and Arielle North Olson talked to area third- through ninth-graders about their books and the art of writing.

"We hope that by seeing live authors, these children will want to read and write more," said one of the festival organizers Ann Gifford, an associate professor in the Department of Elementary, Early and Special Education at Southeast Missouri State University.

Diane Mueller, Dambach's fifth-grade teacher at May Greene, confirmed the festival does excite students about reading.

"When we get back to school, they'll all want to go to the library to check out these authors' books," said Mueller, whose students had just listened to Grove's presentation.

Grove showed transparencies of old black-and-white pictures of herself and her family taken when she was a child.

Grove, who is from Ionia, Mo., showed a picture of her grandmother's and her great-grandfather's house, both of which are featured in "Rimwalkers."

She recalled older cousins telling her the story of a great-uncle who died when he was 6 years old and whose ghost could be seen in a window of her great-grandfather's house.

That ghost, or at least the possibility of such a ghost, also ended up in "Rimwalkers," Grove said.

After the presentation, Grove said the ideas for all her books, which also include "The Crystal Garden" and "Goodbye My Wishing Star," begin with a memory from her life.

"They usually begin with me wanting to better understand something that happened in my childhood," Grove said. "Then they go off in crazy, hair-brained directions."

Learning how books are written often makes them more interesting, said another of the festival organizers Jackie Cowan, a high school librarian/media specialist in Sikeston.

"Such experiences are not that available here in southeast Missouri," said Cowan, a member of the Southeast Missouri Department of Learning Resources, one of the festival sponsors. "We hope it's a beneficial experience for these students."

It seemed to be so for members of Mueller's class who sat mesmerized by Grove's stories and pictures.

"I liked how she told the settings of her stories," said fifth-grader Karen Brandon, who wants to be a writer herself someday.