A meeting of the minds occurs every Wednesday during the writers club at Southside Elementary School. 

The club, led by third grade teacher Kaurine Aure-Takos, is in its first year, following requests from parents and students to create a writing club. There are only three members: Paele Rap, Matthew Davis and Beth Black. But Aure-Takos said she frequently receives requests from students to join.

“This is our first writing group that we’ve had at the school, so we’re hoping next year, we’ll get more [kids]. I know, kids have come to us the last couple of weeks that wanted to join,” Aure-Takos said. “But it’s kind of too late for this group right now, because we’re moving on to the next thing.”

With the Young Authors Contest resuming in Powell after a brief hiatus, Aure-Takos’ young writers are hard at work submitting and illustrating their books. 

On Dec. 6 local authors Tam DeRudder Jackson, Sara Vinduska-Frazier and Linda Rae Sande visited the writing club to listen to their stories and give feedback. DeRudder Jackson, who taught English in Cody, serves as a Young Author’s judge for the fourth grade division.

“I’m mostly interested in [knowing who] your characters are, I want to know what kind of people they are,” DeRudder Jackson said. “I want to be drawn into the story of what’s going to happen to them, I want to care about what happens to them. Those are usually the ones that I judge really high.”

Black said that a typical writing club meeting involves listening to and talking about each other’s stories. Rapp added that Aure-Takos will also read short stories to the club and teach them about organization and mood. Black is writing a comedy play about people and their use of cellphones, while Rapp describes his story’s genre as “I Survived.” Davis’ story is a fantasy novel focused on a group of dragon siblings. 

“I just think it’s that creativity part. I think that’s so important because, you know, in school, we don’t get as much time to let them be creative,” Aure-Takos said. “Because we have to teach a certain way, because we’re testing and it’s just that they need to be creative and they need to be free to do that.”