Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Undefinable Writers: 9 Year Old Writes Story to Pay for Heart Surgery

Writers are in some ways undefinable. Each person writes differently and has to find their own way to do things, but our differences go further than preferred writing methods. We also are undefinable when thinking of an age group, gender, culture, and location, among others. It is those differences that makes each of our stories unique just as they make us different from each other. Often age is the most discriminatory of those differences. A common example of young writers succeeding is often S.E. Hinton, who wrote her first book and had it published as a teenager. Lately, another young writer has been making news, his name is Malkolm Poyer.


Because of a heart condition he has had since birth, Poyer has been unable to do much strenuous activity without getting winded. So, he put his time to another use, reading and writing. Recently, Poyer and his family were told that he would need surgery for his heart condition and while they have health insurance, the expense of the surgery was still sizable. Poyer convinced his parents to let him help with the bill and with their assistance posted copies of a story for sale on ebay.com for $10.00 each. He has since sold more than 300 copies! An excerpt of his story titled, "Luna", is below:


"I keep on striding down the road, and a nice little house steps into my view. There is a closed window, and a small candle glows inside. I hear a voice: “Goodnight, Katie.” A small voice replies: “Goodnight, mommy.”



I think to myself, “I think I’ll take a peek.” I jump toward the window, trying to get their attention. As soon as I smack against the window, I black out."
One of the most incredible things about writing is that there are no parameters for who can do it, it is open to all who know an alphabet. Poyer took advantage of that fact and he and his family are now reaping the benefits. If you want to check out Poyer's blog (yeah, he even has a blog :) go here or you can buy his story for sale here. 

9 comments:

Aubrie said...

Wow! What a great story. I hope he raises emough money.

Shannon O'Donnell said...

Bethany, that is an awesomely powerful story!! Thank you so much for posting this. I'm going to check out his blog. :-)

Jessica Nelson said...

Wow, what a smart, innovative kid! Thanks for highlighting this story.

Jennifer Shirk said...

Whoa, that is a fantastic story!

Susan R. Mills said...

What an amazing kid! Thanks for sharing this story.

Clementine said...

I love it! What a very special young man. I sure hope he comes through the surgery with flying colors, and may this be only the beginning of his journey. Thanks so much for this inspiring post.

Elana Johnson said...

Very cool. Thanks for letting me know about this. It's so true that anyone can write a story, using the same letters as words as I do. What an inspiration!

kah said...

Awww, love inspirational stories like this. Thanks for sharing.

BK Mattingly said...

I think everyone here is having the same reaction I had when I heard about it. It really is incredible.

Amy, He had the surgery and is now recovering. I think he's doing well :)