Celebrate Writing Festival coming to Crestline Elementary

The month of February may be the month of love, but with the help of the Crestline Elementary PTO, on Feb. 24 Crestline students will be dedicating a special day to celebrate writing. 

Crestline previously highlighted writing through the Writers’ Fest hosted by Brookwood Forest, Cherokee Bend and Mountain Brook Elementary, but due to their size, branched off to hold their own celebration, Crestline librarian Nancy Dillard said.

Sidney Clapp, Crestline PTO chairman, added that Crestline is now partnered with Brookville Elementary School in Birmingham, and the students from both schools come together for the day. 

The festival features five authors who are either local, regional or national, and one who is a musical author. This year’s authors include Jeff Anderson, Sheila Booth-Alberstadt, Charles Ghigna, Carole Marsh and César Alvarez. Both Booth-Alberstadt and Ghigna are Alabama residents — Ghigna lives in Homewood. Alvarez is a musical author who works with RockaLingua, a company that specializes in music-based Spanish learning. 

Clapp said the authors will spend time with the grades throughout the day and talk about their experiences as writers, what they like about writing and how they create their characters. She also said the authors sometimes tell stories, too. 

“The students love it because it’s essentially spending a day listening to stories,” Clapp said. “I think it encourages creative writing and to think outside the box.”

This year, members of the Desert Island Supply Company, or DISCO, will also be joining the celebrations to work through a writing mini-workshop with the sixth-graders. 

“It kind of brings to life the art of writing a book,” Clapp said. “It just makes it more real and more [tangible] for them.”