Hart Ford

An author responds

By Theresa Ekdom

ROSCOMMON – When high school students turn in an assignment they expect to get it back with a grade. Jessica Disney, 10th grader at Roscommon High School got that and much more.

Students in Kathy Durbin’ English class read a book each month, and then complete a book project choosing from a list of 18 options. One of the options is to create a new book cover.

After reading City of Thieves by David Benioff, that is what Disney did.

‘When I got it back there was a note from Ms. Durbin that I should send the artwork to the author,’ Disney said.

Durbin explained, ‘When I was grading the projects, I thought that Jessica’s “new” cover was fantastic because she didn’t just opt to sketch a scene from the story. Her cover really captured some of the main ideas in the story (the fact that the two main characters had been thrown into an incredibly chaotic and dangerous situation because of some eggs). Her work was so precise and unique – because it wasn’t just a drawing; she had taken the time to create silhouettes of the characters and had built the art with cutouts. It looked like it took some serious thought, time, and effort – it just really struck me as a terrific piece of artwork.’

Disney sent her original artwork to Benioff, author and co-creator of the HBO series, Game of Thrones. Three months later, she was surprised by a huge box in the mail.

‘It was full of Game of Thrones stuff,’ Disney said.

She dug to the bottom of the box to find an envelope saying ‘To Jessica From David.’

‘I was confused at first; I thought it was from my brother (David). But then I opened the letter and it said it was from David Benioff.’

‘I had never seen Game of Thrones,’ she added.

Durbin shared Disney’ excitement in hearing from the author.

‘When she heard from Benioff, she came striding into the room up to my desk with a manila envelope in her hand and pulled out the letter he had sent. She was flabbergasted at the amount of stuff he had sent her from “Game of Thrones.” It was so fun for me to see her excitement over the fact that her work had made such an impression on the author of a book she just happened to choose for her 10th grade English class,’ Durbin said.

In addition to his letter, Benioff sent an autographed poster, Pop Figures, a sweatshirt and Monopoly game along with other Game of Thrones promotional items. And, Benioff placed her artwork on his office wall.

‘I was really surprised because I wasn’t expecting anything back from him,’ Disney said.

As for City of Thieves, ‘It was really good, I liked it a lot,’ she said.

Future students of Durbin’ class will be encouraged to contact other authors.

‘Jessica’s experience has gotten me thinking about adding a “Write to the Author” component to the monthly book projects – I think it would be fun for more kids to have an opportunity to connect with authors who inspire them,’ Durbin said

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