The Fruit Bowl Project

Call it six degrees of separation. The kids in 8th Grade Writers Workshop are awestruck when their teacher announces that through her husbands cousin, shes met rock superstar Nick Thompson and has invited him to their class. Hes come to talk about writing and hes even cooler than they imagined. Nick, known for his music as well as his lyrics, tells the kids his secret: A song is just a bowl of fruit–one must figure out how to paint it. Words are to a writer what paint is to a painter. How many ways can one arrange the fruit? An infinite number. Theres style, voice, genre, and much more to consider. Nick gives the kids two weeks to complete the assignment using seven seemingly ordinary elements. Each student must tell an interesting story, reflecting his or her style. And so The Fruit Bowl Project begins. Rap, poetry, monologue, screenplay, haiku, fairy tale–and more.

Sara Durkee has had success as a writer, lyricist, comedy writer, scriptwriter and poet. Currently, her songs, scripts and poetry are featured on the PBS reading show Between the Lions, as well as on Dora the Explorer, Arthur, and others. Her writing for grown-ups includes The Book of Sequels, a collection of literary parodies co-authored with fellow National Lampoon alumni Chris Cerf, Henry Beard, and Sean Kelly. She is married to Paul Jacobs and they have two kids. She lives in New York City.

From the Trade Paperback edition.