Taylor Stevens, author of The Informationist series, will visit Legacy on May 2 in conjunction with Mansfield Public Library’s program Mansfield Reads. The program chooses an author each year to visit a Mansfield ISD high school to discuss their writing process and published books with students. During the visit, students may ask questions to help improve their writing.
Throughout third and fourth period, Stevens will talk with students in the library about her career. Teachers can bring their classes to the library to listen.
“I’m glad they do this for our public schools,” librarian Pamela Pinkerton said. “It’s cool learning how the authors do it.”
The program was designed for students to learn more creative writing skills and encourage students to read and write. When an author visits, they discuss their journey of how they became a writer so students can get an idea of what to do to become an author.
“This would really benefit a creative writing class the most,” Pinkerton said. “I wish we had one here at Legacy.”
Raised in a religious cult where education stops after sixth grade and jobs outside the commune were strictly prohibited, being a writer wasn’t an option for Stevens. Members of the cult were also not allowed to listen to music, watch tv or read things from people not in the commune or cult.
“As children and teenagers we had no mental simulation, we were so bored,” Stevens said. “I would make up stories for entertainment.”
At fourteen, Stevens started writing those stories down in notebooks. When the notebooks were discovered by the religious leaders of The Children of God they told her “to never write fiction again”. Once out of the strict religious cult, around the age of thirty, Stevens decided to give storytelling another try.
“I didn’t start out with the idea of becoming a writer,” Stevens said. “I wrote so I could say I had finished a book. There was no way I could have possibly predicted or even imagined what would follow from the determination to see that one decision through.”
Since then Stevens has written three books: The Informationist, The Innocent and The Doll. Her fourth book, The Catch, will be on store shelves in July. Stevens gets paid everyday she goes to her desk to write. If she doesn’t write that day or meet a deadline she doesn’t get paid.
“For me writing is a job,” Stevens said. “Without a formal education or alternative career to fall back on, writing is the only way I have to keep the lights on and the bills paid. Also, writing is who I am; it’s what I do.”
