Laurie Morrison seems to be in the middle of everything. She’s a middle school ELA teacher at The Philadelphia School in Pennsylvania, and the author of middle grade novels including Up for Air, Saint Ivy: Kind at All Costs, Coming Up Short, and her latest book, Keeping Pace. PW spoke with Morrison about how her own tween years and her teaching experience influence her writing, and what her hopes are for her students and readers who are just trying to survive middle school.
What do you love most about teaching middle school kids, and what’s the greatest challenge?
I’m currently teaching sixth grade ELA and co-teach a cultural studies project-based class that integrates both outdoor education and different cultures. Earlier in my career, I taught seventh and eight grades, so you could say I’ve done the whole middle school gamut.
I find this age group inspiring and energizing to be around. I love their humor and their increasing ability to think abstractly and beyond themselves—and their great sense of justice. But I especially like the juxtaposition of how young they seem in one second, and how mature they seem in another. This is also the biggest challenge because they can be all over the map, and in different places socially, emotionally, and academically.
I think this is why I clearly remember my own middle grade experience: when you’re feeling all the feelings and everything seems amplified in a way. There’s a huge range of what students are ready to engage in as readers and how analytical they’re ready to be with their writing. It’s my job to find the right ways to challenge and nurture them, knowing these very individual and unique differences.
When did you start writing and publishing middle grade books?
I was an English major in college so I wrote all of the time, but it was mostly what I was assigned in class. I avoided taking a creative writing class because I didn’t think that I had anything good enough to share. But I did feel a pull to teach middle school ELA because of the tenderness that I felt toward my younger self. I felt called, and still do, to help middle grade kids with their writing and reading.
I was inspired to try to write my own middle grade fiction after my first year of teaching seventh and eighth graders. Being with them brought me back to my own middle school experience that I felt so vividly. And, then, after reading so much wonderful literature with my students, I wanted to be part of it. This compelled me to start studying the craft of writing for kids. At first, I tried to write younger YA for a middle grade audience because I’d noticed a lot of my students wanting to “read up.” But I soon discovered that my YA novels were a little young for the market. So eventually I shifted my focus to writing older middle grade novels, and that’s where I have stayed.
With your latest book, Keeping Pace, you’re on quite an impressive pace yourself, with five titles in five years. Can you tell us about this title?
This story is about Grace, an academic overachiever, who has been working hard for her entire middle school career toward one goal. And that’s to be the eighth grade top scholar and beat her former friend turned rival, Jonah Perkins.
But—spoiler alert!—she loses to Jonah and feels like the past couple of years have been a waste, and her achievements weren’t enough to win, or to impress her father. Soon after, she ends up with an open calendar except for training for a half marathon with Jonah with a hope that she’ll beat him to the finish line. It’s not long until they both must rethink what it means to win—and what they might mean to each other.
While writing this title, I thought about my past seventh and eighth grade students who might like to read a book with some romance. But most of what is on the shelves is quite older. So I decided to write a story that I think is what Steve Tetreault, a librarian referred to as “developmentally relevant,” for an age group that will soon be gearing up for big changes, including starting high school and experiencing their first romances. I definitely channeled my 14-year-old self to tell Grace’s story. It was a really fun book to write!
What are your hopes are for Keeping Pace and your other titles?
With Keeping Pace, I hope readers who feel their self worth is wrapped up in their accomplishments may find this book healing—and that it might get them thinking differently about success and achievements. I also hope middle grade readers looking for a sweet romance will find it enjoyable, too. With my other titles, I hope that the stories feel honest and personal, and that readers can identify with and feel compassion for the characters—and in turn have greater compassion for themselves and others. We can never really know what’s going on the “insides” of people, or the feelings they are having from their “outsides.” So we need to try to have compassion for everyone.
What else can you tell us about your own tween experience and how it has influenced your novels?
I had a generally positive adolescence. I had good friends and family, and I loved my teachers, but there was some turmoil in those years. My parents got divorced when I was in sixth grade. So, I dealt with all that goes with parents splitting up, and I was also a pretty sensitive kid. I was very tuned in to things around me and all of the changes in middle school. I felt all of these things deeply.
My main identity growing up was being a good student, as well as an athlete—albeit, I wasn’t as accomplished an athlete as some of my characters are! I absolutely loved competing in sports, but I also felt all of the feelings and pressures of competition very intensely. Because athletics is also a big part of my kids’ lives today, I’m drawn to writing about sports and creating characters that feel as complex and nuanced as real people. And, at the same time, I like to lean into social emotional dynamics to capture the fullness of my characters’ lives and relationships inside and outside of sports.
How does your teaching influence your writing—and vice versa?
As a teacher, I read and connect with kids over books. I get to see firsthand what books are out there, and which books my students are most excited about.
As a writer and an English major, I especially love finding ways to integrate creative writing instruction into my curriculum. We do a lot of analytical writing and research writing. I like to teach creative writing and the many ways my students can be creative within any format. In addition, I like to share anecdotes on how often I have to start over, how many rounds of revision I have to go through, what my writing process looks like, and most importantly, help them see themselves as writers.
