Thursday, Sept. 20, Dani Webb, North Oaks Middle School’s librarian, and Cindra Wetli, school secretary, sponsored a party for the North Oaks Middle School’s Rising Authors to honor them and their families for their hard work on the novel they wrote last year entitled “Camp Clearwater.”

The students spent from August to January writing the novel and then at the beginning of the second semester, Haltom High School seniors got involved and became peer editors for the Rising Authors. Lesli Bradley, Allison Conaway, Ann Hale and Crysten Caviness worked with more than 300 seniors on this massive undertaking.

Each week, the Rising Authors waited for suggestions from the high school. In class, they discussed, wrote, and rewrote the entire book, which took more than four months to complete. Next, Emily Arnold, Haltom High School teacher, and her photojournalism students professionally designed the book cover. One of her students actually went out in the woods and took the background picture and then the photojournalism students used Photoshop to add in all the kids and teachers who portrayed the main characters for the book. Crysten Caviness worked tirelessly to format it, so it could be in publishable form. Unfortunately, the book arrived the last day of school, so the students didn’t get to celebrate it very much, so Sept. 20 was their first celebration.

The book is available for download on www.smashwords.com or by googling “Camp Clearwater” by the Rising Authors.