Marquette, MI – August 2, 2017 – Today we welcomed Andrea Kleinpaste to our weekly rotary meeting. Andrea’s face is one many in the audience remember from her family’s involvement in past Seafood Fests! Today Andrea Kleinpaste joined us to talk about the Marquette Alger Young Authors Conference.
Kleinpaste opened by talking about her experiences with the Young Authors. As a child, she fondly remembers attending the program. The Young Authors Conference began with an idea to build literacy and authorship within our community. Over the last 39 years, Kleinpaste said, “the Conference as grown to include 13 schools and this last conference including 3,300 students.” Open to young fives through fifth grade, the week long event brings in local and large authors to talk to children about writing.
Each May the group rents out Jamrich Hall at Northern Michigan University. A large part of Young Authors to remind children that they are all authors. “Students are authors. They are writing every day and it is important for kids to realize that,” Kleinpaste said.
Before authors come to the conference, children have a chance throughout the year to read a story from each writer giving them a chance to ask questions about the stories and get advice on their own written stories. Students enjoy a week of meeting new authors, eating lunch on the big campus and even making new friends! During Young Authors classrooms receive the option to pen pal with a different class throughout the upcoming school year.
During each conference, kids also have a chance to see a “Specials presentation”. These presenters cover anything from music, yoga, art, or even tae kwon do!
While the Young Authors have been around for many years, they would not be able to continue without the donations they receive. The fee for a week long rental of Jamrich Hall is about $30,000 on it’s own. Between the rental and author fees, the program only requests students pay $6.50 to attend the conference. $6.00 pays lunch with the remanding $0.50 going toward rental and author fees.
If you are interesting in helping to support the Marquette Alger Young Authors, check out their support page.
Contact Andrea Kleinpaste by emailing kleinpa@nice.k12.mi.us or visit the Young Authors’ website.
