“Do something you love, do it as well as you can, and then when you are satisfied with that, look to see how you can use it to do something good for others.”

-Ann Vettikkal, Mason High School 2021 Graduate

Inspiring, comedic, dramatic, even tragic -- Ann Vettikkal uses these words to describe the writings of young authors who participated in “I Can Write a Story,” an after-school creative writing program she designed and taught while a student at Mason High School. During weekly sessions over three school years, Ms. Vettikkal taught children about narrative arcs, complex character building, realistic plots, and authentic dialogue – creative writing skills she honed as a competitor in Power of the Pen. The writers, 4th-6th grade students from Evanston Academy in the Cincinnati Public Schools, eventually published a collection of their work, titled Into Our Imaginations.

“I have always been inclined to write,” remarks Ms. Vettikkal, a creative thinker who fell in love with the process at a young age. “An elementary teacher told me my stories were very creative and encouraged me to write, and that was the beginning of what became my decade-long journey with writing.”

Ms. Vettikkal’s vision to create a class for younger students came from a desire to volunteer in her community in a way that also connected to her passion. Her mother, a mentor with Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, connected her to administrators at Evanston Academy. They set up her creative writing class as an option for children attending an already established after-school program. Evanston English teachers recommended prospects they believed would enjoy the class, not necessarily because they were writers, says Ms. Vettikkal, but “because they were artistic and thought in unique and interesting ways.” 

Ms. Vettikkal’s class met once a week and was primarily made up of African American girls, a demographic group she says is underrepresented as authors. She and Evanston’s administrators agreed that 4th-6th graders were the perfect age for the experience. The students were old enough to channel their energy and focus on their assignments, yet they were young enough to express themselves without inhibitions.

“My mission is to empower students in underserved communities to express their voices and publish their stories,” explains Ms. Vettikkal, who had never worked intensely with children before. “I realize the power writing can have and that it can help these kids find and use their voice. Through that, they can build confidence and success.”  

Week after week the students wrote freely exploring different genres including fiction, non-fiction, personal narratives, poetry, and dialogue. At times, Ms. Vettikkal met with the writers individually to help them expand upon and refine their favorite pieces.

“These were some of the most creative, outgoing kids,” she remarks, describing what she enjoyed most about the experience. “Their energy was invigorating. I loved their ideas. Some of them were so out of this world, I never would have imagined them myself. They just think with abandon and write with abandon, and I really liked that.

“Now, I think of them when I have writer’s block and I am trying to find new ideas or perspectives that I can put into my own writing.”  

Through her connection to Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, Ms. Vettikkal obtained a grant from the Jennings Foundation in 2020 to fund the publication of Into Our Imaginations, the collection of the group’s work. When after-school classes were suspended due to the pandemic, she worked to make this happen. First, she reached out to graphic design students at her high school to illustrate the selected stories and then contacted a local publisher she had worked with in the past. Using her experience as editor of her high school newspaper, she designed the book’s pages, refining several iterations during the process. Then throughout the spring, she worked to publish, distribute, and plan and hold a Zoom celebration of the authors’ success.  

“By accident or by chance I had the skills I needed, at this moment, to publish this book,” she remarks. “It was just perfect.” 

With copies of Into Our Imaginations now in the hands of the authors, on shelves in the Cincinnati Public School libraries, and available to purchase on Amazon, Ms. Vettikkal looks back on the experience with a sense of satisfaction.

“What I really wanted the students to get from the experience is the confidence that I feel when I share my work,” she says. “I want them to know that they have a voice in a world that sometimes doesn’t want to hear it or doesn’t want to respond to it. And I just want them to love to write.”

Ms. Vettikkal has been working to train interested high school students to take over the creative writing class when she leaves the area to attend Columbia University in the fall. While she hasn’t decided on a major, she knows she will always continue writing, which she does mainly for her own enjoyment. But her experience over the past few years with a group of elementary children in Cincinnati has nurtured a guiding principle that will direct her in whatever path she pursues. As she simply states: “Do something you love, do it as well as you can, and then when you are satisfied with that, look to see how you can use it to do something good for others.”