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Publishing ho college studei By The College Press Service If a lot of noise was in Lorri Hewett's dormitory toi one morning last November, she's the one to blame. try She ran down the halls of Emory University's Hopkins Hall screaming "I got published!" after the shi news came that Holloway House in Los Angeles, CA. to r* _ _r i . . C _ *u: atwtpicu iiti iiuvci turning oj Age iui iciease mis u? summer. The achievement defies conventional wisdom in the ha publishing industry. coi First of all, college students don't get novels published ? that's for seasoned writers, whose roads to scl success are paved by rejection slips. of Secondly, Hewett didn't have an agent; she sent her Af manuscript by mail. Editors at some publishing houses els won't talk to authors who don't have an agent He And thirdly, Hewett's novel was accepted by the bo first company she contacted. Often agented manuscripts get passed from one publishing house to in another for a year before one says yes. mc So what happened here? "Perseverence and luck," 18-year-old Hewett, a sophomore said. wa Hewett is no naive literary romantic. She learned thr the ropes by pounding out two other books. The first was a 100-pager on pioneers in the 1800s, which she as wrote at age 9. do "I had just tinisned reading 'Little House on the un Prairie,' and wanted to write something just like it," she said. "F rer At 15, she wrote a novel about high school racism and submitted it in pursuit of the Delacorte First Qu Young Adult Novel Prize. Her book didn't win, but ^ the editors were encouraging. 'They wrote me and said they thought I had a real wr future in writing," Hewett said. on Not everything the editors said was complimentary. "They said I had a lot of stylistic problems," she ad said. Hewett remembered she didn't even know what cit style was, but she was going to find out. So she found a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. tur pi cttltt j"The United Way work! days a year, not just th they take up the mon V ' ^ 10K G^. ORDER YOUR UNIVERS1 Cycle Center on in Five Points Across $50 to $100 off 1991 Diamond Back & Giant The Owners are out of town! Blow Out on 1990 Mt. Bikes |x Give us your Best You<iMJ Gamecock Offer!! Hp Hi Call Us Now About Specials 256-0557 <eTt I ' r J -a} ee^ O^VjAC??7 vtvv use accepts it's novel By her last year at Chatfield High School in Littlei, CO, she was ready to give novel writing another "I was in the second semester of my senior year," e said. "I was just sitting around waiting for my life begin, so I thought I'd write a book about people at s point in their lives." She wrote the first draft of Coming of Age in longnd in six weeks. Then she revised it on her mputer. The book's three characters are all black high 100I seniors at crossroads in their lives. She writes teens who don't know whether to embrace their fican-American identities to the exclusion of all e or to reject their heritage altogether. "Identity," iwett said, "is the theme that runs throughout the ok." Hewett, whose middle-class parents brought her up a predominantly white suburb, has things in com>n with each character, she said. "There are times I felt I didn't know how to fit in. I mted to write about young blacks who were going ough what I was going through," she said. Mfvtia imaaes stp.rpntvnina Afriran-Ampriran rpp.ns drug dealers or young mothers frustrate HewetL So es any brand of Afro-centrism sacrificing individual iqueness for strict unity. "There isn't one single black identity," she said, or every black person in the country, there's a diffeit black experience." Now that Hewett is at Emory, she might write abt the college experience. She is working on another ok but didn't comment about it Hewett still sees herself more as a student than a iter. She doesn't have any illusions of fleeing Em/, sans diploma, for the writing life. "Unrealistic," she said. The day she received the vance copies of her book in the mail, she "was exed for about an hour." Then she put the books back in their box and rened to her course work. i V i J UUJPH Mcl 5 365 _ _ "I . The United Way Is I e day ip The Way Of Love. I e>" 1 ave tyow JONES COLLEGE RING ?FF $50BFF $100SF Id 14K Gold 18K Gold IT OF SOUTH CAROLINA CLASS RING!! ZROW* September 4 and September 5 00 AM - 4.-00 PM mm ia Bookstore 801 Main St. U HERFF JONES $20 Deposit * Harden Street s From Grouchos : Mt. Bikes Bike Sales and Service Campus Also Dealer of k Treks c * *Diamond Backs ? Sharps ^ c Ha^osX n ft 5 Hardan St. *Cannondale 1 I . *GIANT ? Shirley's 55 Ptt2* I * Specialized I *GT. It's Your Choice Also see our new location at 2719 Broad River Rd. 798-7799 rj I SB I ' | wl^^Lt. I I ^^F'^'* ^ *" /' I I 1 ^ F1 *J| 4 I | I 1 ^K . H I Blocked! 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