Author Paul Valponi Spends the Day with EPCHS Students

Author Paul Volponi recently provided EPCHS English classes with a full-day writers workshop in the school’s LRC. He is the recipient of 12 American Library Association honors and a keynote speaker at several of their events. His catalog of critically acclaimed work includes Black and White (Winner of the IRA’s Children’s Book Award), The Final Four (which received 5 starred reviews), Rikers High (Quick Pick Top 10), and his award-nominated middle-grade novel Top Prospect.

During his visit Mr. Volponi discussed his career, noting his success as an author despite being an indifferent reader himself as a teenager. He said, “When I was in middle school and high school, I didn’t read a thing. As a matter of fact, I was like the anti-reader. I was so good at it that I had serious skills in the game.” At one point, Volponi’s high school English teacher recommended a James Bond book to him. He had seen the movie, which made him interested in the action packed story. He then read and enjoyed the book!

Volponi went on to explain to students that his stories were based on real events. He said that he gets most of the ideas for his writings through personal life experiences such as spending his early childhood living next to a jail and later in life, becoming a teacher at that same jail. He claimed these two experiences inspired him to write his first books.

Senior Annabel Viravec had this to say about the author's visit. "The workshop was interesting. I liked how we created stories of a group from a picture. I also liked how the author talked about how you can make a story from just about anything you observe. He talked about getting inspiration from riding the bus or listening to the news." Annabel saw another author her freshman year, and she said she felt this year’s visit offered more of an experience as opposed to just listening to an author talk about becoming an author. She stated that Paul "put them [the students] into the picture."

Paul Volponi is a writer, teacher, and journalist living in New York City. From 1992-1998, he taught incarcerated teens on Rikers Island to read and write. He said the job was incredibly rewarding and eye opening. That experience formed the basis of his ALA Award-winning novels Rikers High and Black and White. From 1999-2005, Paul taught teens in drug treatment programs, inspiring his ALA Award-winning novel Rooftop.