A Mystery Writing How-to for Young Authors
with Lucinda Landon
A Review by parent Mary Brooks and third grader Macon
Lucinda Landon, author and illustrator of the Meg Mackintosh mysteries, came to talk to the Peirce 2nd and 3rd graders on Monday, January 28.

She started out by showing slides of herself at age 9 and some of her first drawings. She had a warm relaxed presence and you could see the students instantly relate to her has "one of them". She had lots of advice for the young, aspiring mystery writers:
  • present your clues early in the story
  • lay out the whole story in small "thumbnail" pages
  • put lots of clues in the drawings
  • no coincidences (like long lost identical twins that appear at the end!)
  • make your detectives work hard!
Lucinda explained that between developing the ideas, fine tuning the illustrations and editing, writing a book can take up to 5 years! She demonstrated her character drawing method. Meg Mackintosh's face just appeared before their eyes. There was plenty of 'oohing' and 'ahhing'! She showed pictures of her house and studio, her children and her dogs. The students really got a sense of what things, people and places go into writing her books.

Macon said, "I liked seeing her detective kit. I loved seeing the way she draws her characters - a rough draft with pencil or crayon with ink over the top. I thought it was really cool that she wrote about William Dawes instead of Paul Revere." His final comment was, "How would you like to be Lucinda Landon?!"

Let's just see what kinds of creative writings
Lucinda may inspire!!
 .
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