On Monday, Nov. 3, students attending the Living Writer’s course were given a detailed in-person presentation by the published author, Shana Youngdahl. She spoke about her book “A Catalog of Burnt Objects,” a novel which was notably published by Dial Books, an imprint of the famous Penguin Random House publishing group.

The piece is a contemporary young adult story, based on the experiences of residents who went through periods of loss and renewal throughout the catastrophic climate change induced wildfires in California. The author was introduced to the class with a lengthy recount of her accolades by SUNY Oswego student and teaching assistant, Isabella Fusani.

Youngdahl then began her presentation by pulling up a slide show full of photographs from her early childhood and from growing up in Paradise Hills, California. Youngdahl explained how the fictional city of Sierra described in her novel is based on her own hometown which burned to the ground in the 2018 wildfires. She then showed the class a photo of her and her dad eating a pancake breakfast on their family home’s back porch and pointed to the tree sticking out in the background, explaining “that tree was growing out of the middle of the garage,” to exemplify how closely they lived with nature.

She flipped through several more family photos which showed her loved ones positioned affectionately around the trees and comfortably within the natural beauty surrounding their home. The author described how important this place was to her writing and how it helped to shape the form of her book. Then Youngdahl pulled up photos of the aftermath. Burned houses, a charred tricycle and scarred trees appeared to be the only things left in the wake of the disastrous wildfire.

“Start thinking as writers now, how our homes can inspire us and how we can see its changes as fuel for creation,” Youngdahl told the class of future writers.

Youngdahl subsequently displayed pictures of some of her high school memorabilia, which were now lost forever due to the fires and explained how these inspired her to write the creative artifacts pages in her novel which explained what was lost to the characters and how they mattered to the people who lost them.

“The history of a location is always important,” Youngdahl said, after reading an excerpt from her book. After her reading was completed, the author opened up to the floor for questions.

One student named Elliot asked if it was difficult for her to write about something emotional that happened to her indirectly and asked if she found writing from the fictional protagonist’s perspective to be cathartic.

Youngdahl responded by agreeing that although the trauma did not happen to her directly, she felt it indirectly through her loved ones and she did not wish to write by exploiting other people’s pain. The author sympathized that writing from the young character’s perspective was indeed cathartic and helpful for processing her own painful feelings concerning the matter.

The last question was posed by SUNY Oswego student, Rory Maggio. “How exactly did you get into the industry with your first book?” Maggio asked. Youngdahl answered that she had two collections of poetry previously published by her university press and for her latest novels she queried a literary agent. In order to find the right literary agent for her books, she searched methodically through comparative novels and kept a spreadsheet of agents she felt would best fit her work.

The event culminated in book signings for the students and other attendees.