You can find out what it is by reading her new book
Anna Read, a West Point resident, just graduated from O’Neill High School.
She’s been admitted to Penn State University for this fall, to study Community, Environment and Development, a major that encompasses learning to build environmentally sustainable communities in developing areas using science and policy.
But first, Anna plans to defer school for several semesters, taking a ‘gap year’, as many high school graduates find themselves doing in recent years.
“During this time, I hope to move abroad with a humanitarian organization to work for social justice in third world areas,” she said this week. “I had planned to move to New Zealand, but I am also considering England or Scotland due to border closures.”
Wow.
But, that’s not what this story is about. It’s about the fact that, at age 18, Anna is already a published author, and those interested can purchase her 77 page paperback book, Beginnings, on Amazon.
From the description of the book online: “Half metered, half free verse, Beginnings is a collection of poems that reflects the journey of discovering one’s creative medium, and the expression it allows through life’s highs and lows. Written over the course of high school, it allows a look into the life of one teenager’s experience through these four, formative years. The first section of the book is structured, traditional poems. These are classically inspired, organized, and stand as a testament to the opportunity of rhyme and orderly nature of meter. The second section is a compilation of free verse poems, which are unstructured, and inspired by the contemporary world of poetry. From distant memories to major life events, Beginnings emphasizes the importance of looking back and appreciating a major chapter in life before moving on to the next.”
Modest, Anna notes that while she is proud of her work — “writing is a huge passion of mine” — she doesn’t plan to pursue it as a career, as noted above.
“I’d like to keep it as a hobby. In the future, I hope to use my writing to advocate for those who do not have the platform or voices I have,” she said. “I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, though I think I became a writer in middle school. I was home schooled in sixth grade, and I took an intense, classical writing course during this year. I did not like it at the time (there was a lot of diagramming sentences and grammar analysis) but in hindsight, it was a great foundation.”
But it was while at O’Neill, she says, that she “found her voice”.
“Through creative writing and poetry, writing became a way for me to express myself in an eloquent way — which I found so beautiful,” she says. “In my sophomore English class, we had a poetry unit, and I found myself fascinated by the potential of prose and metered poetry. I began to structure my thoughts into poems more and more. I would write them on my typewriter and tape them to my wall. Although I was writing constantly, about everything I could.”
Writing is a huge passion of mine
Anna Read
She never imagined she’d share those poems with the world.
In her senior year, Anna took an Advanced Placement Literature course. She calls it “intense”, but says it was “one of the best classes I have taken”.
“At the end of the year, we had a final project, and our teacher gave us the option to choose our own project,” she says. “I decided to compile the poetry I had written over the past four years, refine it, and self-publish.”
And her book was born.
She worked with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, which she said streamlined the process and made it simple to take her finished manuscript and publish it.
“It was a great way to use the free time I found myself with during quarantine, and it became a sort of closure, one that I became increasingly grateful for in the abrupt ending of this unconventional senior year,” Anna said. “I am so thankful to everyone who has encouraged this creative voice of mine, and I hope to continue writing to elevate other’s stories as I move to this next chapter.”
Anna is thoughtful as she prepares for that next chapter of her life … “as I prepare to leave home and go into the world, I realize that this book truly lives up to its title — it is the Beginning of a journey.”
Anna’s book, published on June 15, costs $8.50. It currently has a rating of 5.0 on Amazon. From that review … “this collection of poems is a delight. Anna Read has a knack for noticing and naming things. She makes me want to attend to my own life with eyes wide open, pen in hand.”
Beginnings currently ranks #301 on Amazon’s listing of Ancient & Classical Poetry
