Can I Get There By Candlelight?

Author Gregory Maguire visited the Lawrence School on June 7, 2007, meeting with students in Grades 3 and 4 during the school day and welcoming an audience of young people and adults in the evening. Masterful in his description of "the writing life," Gregory provided inspiration for the writer in each of us, encouraging us to look at the world around us, write about it from our experience and our imagination, and share our writing with friends. He brought an editorial perspective to examples of our students' writing, suggesting new choices of descriptive words, sequences of thought and "the surprise factor." He also commended highly the obvious discipline students had brought to their writing, as many memorable characters and story lines emerged in the writing samples.

Mr. Maguire showed us slides of the stories he wrote and illustrated in elementary school, and he read a bit to us from his published works such as Leaping Beauty, all of which contained laugh-out-loud passages indicative of his quirky humor. He also described the amazement he felt when first viewing the stage production of the popular musical "Wicked," based on his book of the same name. It was a grand pleasure to host Mr. Maguire!