Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Student’s novel focus of school book club
Downingtown East students read a book written by their classmate, who wrote it as a graduation project
Downingtown East students read a book written by their classmate, who wrote it as a graduation project.
UWCHLAN >> Downingtown East students participated in a book club reading of a fictional novel written by their classmate.
When Downingtown East High School librarian Darryl McCauley entered the school library one morning, he saw a group of students hovering over a computer. After a closer look at the computer screen, he saw the photo icon of a book that was on sale on Amazon. The 450-page fantasy was written by one of his students, Leah Duff. McCauley purchased 10 hard copies and invited students to read the book and join him in a discussion of the fable in an afterschool book club.
McCauley said he is thrilled that creative students have this new opportunity to put their imaginations to work and create a book for others to read.
“Lots of students have a book idea in them,” McCauley said. “Leah is one of the first students I know to take her idea and run with it. I was very pleased to be able to feature one of my own students in our book club and have been very pleased with the numbers of students who have been taking her book out of the library to read.”
Using the pseudonym Leanne Duffy, the young author wrote “The Violet Wars” for her required graduation project. All students in the Downingtown Area School District must complete a Community Service experience or complete a project that involves at least 40 hours of time and effort
“I didn’t publish in the hopes of getting any money. I did it for the principle of writing a book.” — Leah Duff, Downingtown East High School senior
in order to graduate. Duff wrote the book in 2.5 years.
“I woke up from a dream one morning and the genesis of the book was all right there,” Leah said. “I started to write and quickly filled up three notebooks.”
The story is set in the kingdom of Eilian, once ruled by a benevolent race called the Fae. Human greed has destroyed all but one of the Fae. The young Fae, heroine Arwyn Dubois, is determined to take her kingdom back from the greed, poverty and corruption of the young King Dominik.
“I was so honored when Mr. McCauley wanted to use my book for the book club,” Duff said. “I really want to get feedback from my fellow students. What character did they liked, what plot twist worked, what didn’t? I’m excited but a little nervous to hear what they have to say.”
The book club featuring Duff’s book was held on Jan. 10. Freshman Gabe Ramos said it was “really good” and called it a fantasy epic. Sophomore Rachel Sano said she had stayed up until midnight to finish it. East freshman Leah Laurie said she liked the main character, and that the “story lines were well fleshed out.”
Duff’s biggest fan is her sister, Alana, who has two copies of The Violet Wars. One she said she plans to find and mark typos, and one to keep clean for when her sister “becomes a famous author.”
“She dedicated the book to me,” Alana said with a smile, “but I think I should share co-writing credit for all the hours I put into editing her typos. She gets an idea and races along with it, but sometimes she forgets to put in her periods.”
Duff took advantage of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. There is no charge on Amazon to upload your book. Amazon reports that it has thousands of self-published titles available for sale through its Kindle Store yet only 40 self-published authors can boast of being successful in this new publishing world.
“I used Amazon’s selfpublishing services, writing, editing and doing all the formatting myself,” Duff said. “I was even able to design the cover.”
If someone searches and purchases the Kindle copy of the book, authors get royalties of either 35 percent to 70 percent of the sale price depending on the Amazon service used.
“I didn’t publish in the hopes of getting any money,” Duff said. “I did it for the principle of writing a book.”
Duff, a senior, is planning to study English and Digital Arts at Middlebury College.
“I was very pleased to be able to feature one of my own students in our book club and have been very pleased with the numbers of students who have been taking her book out of the library to read.” — Darryl McCauley, Downingtown East High School librarian