Student Publishes Hootworthy Book

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We love sitting down and talking with Hootworthy champions. Nia, a seventh grader at Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA), published her first book, One Amongst The Runaways, this past January through Amazon direct publishing. Her book is historical fiction set during World War II (WWII), a thriller that includes many plot twists, written in first person omniscience, and took her about a year and a half to complete. The story consists of five characters, though the main character is a girl who is taken from her family and sent to Auschwitz. Each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective, each running away from something both literally and figuratively. Want to find out how the story turns out? You’ll have to read it!

Nia has always enjoyed writing as a hobby and telling stories, so she decided to give writing a novel a shot. Not many seventh graders decide to write a book, but Nia was inspired after reading The Devil’s Arithmetic, and she thought she had plenty of stories swirling in her head that she wanted to share with the world. She knew about the WWII death camps but appreciated how The Devil’s Arithmetic helped her feel about the camps while reading the story which created an emotional impact. She thinks that not many people can really feel what was happening in those camps, and she aimed to create an emotional response in her readers while they read her story.

While writing her book, the most difficult thing she experienced was the dreaded writer’s block. She mentioned that she continued to focus on one thing so much that it killed her creativity. She kept the book on chapter five for months because she found it very difficult to be motivated to write; however, she discovered that music helped her through the writer’s block; it gave her the motivation needed to keep storytelling. Due to the sad nature of the story, it was listening to sad music melodies that kept her writing.

She first found time to write the book during quarantine because she started the book in the fifth grade when Covid hit. Before coming to GCA, she would finish school early and work on the book. Even when she joined GCA, she found she still had time to write because of how helpful the teachers were during class; she discovered she didn’t need much time outside of class to work on school. She also likes how at GCA she had more time to work on the book because she spent less time getting ready for school or driving to school.

Nia thinks she will continue writing, and perhaps be an author on the side, but she really wants to become a neurosurgeon. She is currently working on her next book, which she plans to be the second in the series. She is thankful to her family for their support. We are very proud of Nia and this Hootworthy accomplishment! We encourage everyone to find and to read Nia’s book on Amazon, One Amongst the Runaways!

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