More than 500 young writers took classes here at the Loft this summer. Some of them loved it enough to come back for several classes, but one student really stood out—he took 7 classes! And so, ladies and gentleman, I present the award for MVP—er, MVYW (Most Valuable Young Writer)—to Mr. Shaw Payne!
Shaw, age 15, is a rising high school sophomore from South Minneapolis. The 7 Loft classes he took this summer are:
- The Alternate Universe: Creating Fictional Worlds with Carrie Mesrobian
- Writing Mystery and Detective Fiction with Carrie Mesrobian
- A Character Building Experience with Joan Linck
- Fantastic Fiction with Philip Fuller
- I Want to Be an Author! A Tour of the Publishing Industry with Jacquelyn Fletcher
- The Write Stuff: Elements of Fiction with Kathryn Savage
- Advanced Writing the Dark with Jeanne Bain
The most interesting and potentially useful class, Shaw said, was I Want to Be an Author!, but his overall favorite teaching artist is Carrie Mesrobian. “She was great, she was funny, and she helped me a lot with my work,” Shaw said.
Shaw has written 23,000 words of a novel, so he’s about halfway done. He hopes to publish it by the old-fashioned route, but he has no definite goal or deadline. “It takes me a very, very long time to write a scene,” Shaw said. He plans each scene carefully before actually writing it, which is a time-consuming process. The story of his novel is all planned out in his head, he said, though he has only a vague idea of the ending. Shaw describes his novel contemporary and contemplative, and though it has sci-fi elements, he said, it is “totally genreless.”
Despite preferring to work late at night, Shaw has yet to develop the stereotypical writer’s habit of chugging coffee. “I hate coffee—I despise coffee,” he said.
Shaw has had the fortune of working closely with a mentor, Twin Cities’ playwright Reginald Edmund, who came into Shaw’s 9th grade class to help instruct Romeo & Juliet. Shaw shared some of his work, to which Mr. Edmund replied, “Man, you can write your butt off.” They continue to correspond by e-mail and occasional meetings. Mr. Edmund’s guidance has been very helpful to Shaw. When I asked if he has any advice for other young writers, he responded immediately, “The best thing you can do…is to find a mentor of any kind…Even your English teacher is fine.”
“Your parents and peers don’t know anything about it,” he said. Finding Reggie (as Shaw calls him) “really, really helped me,” he said.
The feeling, it seems, is mutual. When I contacted Mr. Edmund to ask about Shaw, he responded with these kind words:
I was instantly drawn to Shaw’s mind and his spirit. It was an added bonus when I learned that he was a writer, and upon having the honor of reading his work, I felt overwhelmed with the opportunity to discover that Shaw is a writer with a unique look and feel, rich with both philosophy and dark wit in a way that I never imagined a young writer could tackle things. I’m looking forward to watching this exciting writer’s voice grow and thrive.
When he isn’t writing, Shaw said, “I dabble in everything.” He especially loves cars and video games. “I have an automobile addiction,” Shaw said. Bioshock, a game set in a 1940 secret underwater city, is Shaw’s “favorite story ever written or told.”
Apart from the stories of video games, Shaw’s favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. “He’s funny, he’s weird, and he has amazing messages,” he said.
We look forward to reading Shaw’s amazing messages as soon as he can finish his novel and get it published. There’s no telling right now when that will be, but one thing is for sure: there’s a lot of good stuff to come from our 2011 Most Valuable Young Writer.
“I’d like to have a profession in writing,” Shaw said. While he prefers to write fiction, he said, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”
–Emily Joan Smith
