Laura at the Loft

The Loft is a hip place on Washington Avenue where all the serious writers go to work on their craft. They offer lots of classes and workshops, and this spring we found out they offer classes for kids! Naturally, Laura chose to do the weeklong day camp. She spent her days last week in classes with real authors, and produced some very good work.

She even got published! Here's a link to her illustrated story, "Hot Dog!"

On Friday, there was an open house where the kids in her class gave a reading for the parents. She read her exercise in dialogue:


One of her assignments, as she sat along the Mississippi River, was to write a story about the most creative thing she could think of that someone would find in the river. Today at my mom's birthday party at our house, she gave a dramatic reading. Here is the transcript (with the author's permission, of course):

I am a bra, floating on the river. I look light pink, and I sound like a bra. I taste like fabric. I got into the river because my owner threw me away. I sat at Target until someone bought me. I was put on the conveyer belt, I got put into a bag, and I was taken home. I was put into a drawer and that's when I met my friend, Underwear. Some days my owner would wear me, and I got a view of the inside of her shirt. Then one day she threw me into the river. Good thing I'm waterproof. Each day, I float down the river. People giggle and say, "Look, a bra in the river!" Good thing too. I love the river.