On Dec. 2, Robert Durham, language arts teacher,his creative writing class Jamie Wildt, art teacher, and her graphic design class hosted a release party for their published short stories and book covers at the 6 North Cafe from 6p.m.- 8p.m. After spending a semester writing their own original short story and developing book cover designs, the students held this release party for their peers, parents, teachers, and the administration.

Durham said he is happy that everyone has been so supportive and feels incredibly proud of his students and the book cover artists.

“Its a great event to see all of our accomplishment,” Durham said.

Durham said his writers have grown tremendously through this project because they had to deal with editors, cover artists, and the process of developing their own stories.

Durham said the release party is something his students have been looking forward to.

“We’ve been looking forward to this for the entire semester, as the date got closer and closer, it became more than a date and turned into an event,” Durham said.

Fernando Solari, senior, was one of the authors present at the release party and said the entire experience of publishing a book has been eye opening for him.

“At first I was a bit scared because I didn’t know the reaction I would get with my book or if it would come back and hurt me in a couple of years,” Solari said. “But, as we started to go through the process and talk to Mr. Durham, get edits, and meet our book cover designers, I started to feel really excited about it.”

Solari’s book, Cuban Cigar, centers around a man who catches his wife cheating when he finds another man’s tie in their bedroom. The man leaves their home and goes to a bar to drink away his sorrows but ends up meeting a man, dressed impeccably and smoking a cuban cigar, who he seemingly has a lot in common with.

Solari said looking back on this experience as a whole, he is really proud of how far he has come as an author and is extremely grateful for this experience.

Nick Valer, senior, not only wrote a short story but also designed the book cover as well.

Valer said his inspiration for his story, “Loss of Mind”, came from the book cover design which he created first.

“Throughout the writing process, I was looking at the book cover and it influenced my story a lot,” Valer said.

Valer said his story centers around a boy who runs away from home when someone close to him passes away and slowly gets lost in his own mind.

Valer said though the story came to him naturally it was difficult for him to write.

“It was hard because it was a pretty sad story so it didn’t make me feel the greatest when writing it,” Valer said.

Valer said when Durham first announced the project, he thought that it would be a “blow-off” type project but as they started to develop their stories and finish them, he started to become invested in the project.

“I didn’t think it would be a crazy cool thing but it really was,” Valer said.

Principal Dr. Dan Ramsey, came out to the release party to show his support for the students.

“This is really cool,” Dr. Ramsey said.”This is a great project just because it lets students see a real world application and they’re so excited about what they’ve put together and the book covers they designed. This is just a powerful opportunity for students to see real-world applications.”

Dr. Ramsey said the release party was a great idea because it allowed the students to showcase all of their hard work to the community.

“I’m ready to buy some books,” Dr. Ramsey said.