#YAReaderWeek Throwback Thursday with Tiffany Truitt

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

I hope you all are enjoying these posts as much as I am! Today I'm hanging out here, with my own Throwback Thursday post. Stop by and say hello, why don't you? :)

I would like to start off by thanking Meradeth for hosting me today! I am so excited she agreed to be a part of the YA Reader Week Blog Hop ☺

Now, let’s get to Throwback Thursday.

I’ve always loved to write. I’m the type of kid who watched television shows and would make up side characters and my own storylines in my head. Hence, my dream to write for a television show one day.

It all started in middle school. I had a 7th grade teacher who pushed the idea of creative writing in her classroom. Every Friday, she gave us the entire class period to write about whatever we wanted. All we had to do was track our progress and turn in one completed story every month. I wrote feverishly. As a teacher myself, I struggle to find a spot in the standardized test centered curriculum for such an experience for my students. I am lucky that I grew up in a time where imagination and creativity were encouraged and expected in the classroom. I don’t know that I would have stuck with writing had I not had such an experience.

I then became quite the horror story writer. Inspired by the work of R.L Stine, alongside my friend, Laura, I wrote my own version of the Fear Street Saga. We turned some of them into our own homemade Made for TV Movies. Luckily for me, I think those tapes are long gone.

Always a bit of a nerd in middle school, writing was my escape. I could create any world I wanted and be whoever I wanted to be in that world.  In high school, I found my people. People who loved to learn and weren’t afraid to admit it. People who could talk hours on end about pop culture. People who embraced the Arts. But, for some reason, my passion for writing dulled. Maybe I was so wrapped up in living life that I didn’t see the point in boxing myself into the world of the written word.

It was teaching that sparked the passion back on. My classroom was filled with low-level struggling readers, and I was constantly on the search for books that would excite them. And so I devoured every YA book I could. And then I wanted to write. I wanted to tell the stories that would pull students back to reading. I wanted to tell the stories that I didn’t think were being told but needed to be. This August, my fourth novel came out, The Language of Silence.  And I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Evernight Teen

About the Author: Tiffany Truitt received her MA in literature from Old Dominion University. Her debut Chosen Ones, first in the Lost Souls trilogy, is a searing look at what it means to be other and how we define humanity, as well as a celebration of the dangerously wonderful feeling of falling in love.