I am pleased to announce that the SOAR Creative Writers eBook, Passages of Promise, is now available as a free download at Smashwords. This collection of creative writing is an anthology of creative works written by the SOAR Creative Writers over the last eight weeks.  The anthology includes:  poems, short stories, song lyrics, book chapters, memoirs, and a play script.  SOAR students also created the artwork for the cover design and most of the chapter dividers.  My job was to compile all the manuscripts, strip them, and put them into Smashwords formatting while serving as a “light” editor of their works; these tasks took approximately fifteen hours on my part.

One of our Language Arts teachers, Justin Reynolds, shared these thoughts on the eBook:

I just want you to know, I am thoroughly enjoying reading all the student submissions. You really have some superstars in there. I’m even using some of the memoirs to help teach my unit on memoirs.

I’m happy that the eBook is providing inspiration to teachers and students; it is always heart-warming to help the students who are truly passionate about their work have an outlet for authentic publishing.   While I don’t think the response to this eBook experience has had the student excitement of the one I did with Amy Balogh and her ESOL students last year (I think high school students may have a greater appreciation of what it means to publish one’s work), I hope to do more projects similar to this one in the future.

I hope you enjoy the eBook, and I’m happy to answer questions you may have about publishing through Smashwords.