Seventeen middle schoolers with a passion for writing are learning from a master in the trade.

For six weeks, acclaimed children’s author Sarah Weeks turns up at Liberty Middle School on Wednesdays to offer 50-minute workshops on the writing process. She’s an expert to say the least – she’s published three million copies of 60 books over the past three decades.

“Sarah teaches the students how to look at things through the eyes of an author,” said Middle School librarian Jill Parks. “She has a wonderful way of encouraging them to look at ordinary things in a different way, fostering their own creativity.”

Fifth through eighth graders applied and 17 were chosen to meet weekly with the author in the school library. Recently, they worked with Weeks on how to gain the reader’s interest right from the beginning. Using power point projections, Weeks invited students to write a beginning to a story based upon images on the screen.

In one case, the screen revealed a close-up of homemade cookies in the shapes of frogs, pigs and gingerbread cookies. The students were invited to write an opening to a story from the point of view of one of the baked goods.

One student wrote an important first sentence: “I stared out blinklessly.” In delight, Weeks cried out “Is that a word? Blinklessly? I love it!”

“My eye slowly sinks into my head,” wrote another middle schooler.

“Oooh, that’s a sci-fi voice,” said Weeks.

For this particular author visit, Weeks didn’t need to use Google Maps or GPS – she and husband Jim Fyfe own a home in Callicoon Center.

“I’ve been in Sullivan County for 30 years,” Weeks said.

In fact, her 2007 New York Times best seller, “So B. It,” features the village of Liberty as a key point in the story about a young girl with an autistic mom who embarks on a cross-country journey to uncover the story of her mother’s past.

Ten years later “So B. It” was made into a well-received full-length feature film by the same name. Shots of Main Street looking diagonally toward Paesanos Pizzeria and footage on Route 52 past the Liberty Free Methodist Church are familiar to many.

“I love being in schools and around kids,” Weeks said, noting that she considers herself a fifth grader who never changed. “Fifth grade is on the cusp. They wonder who they are. There’s yearning and questing and that interests me.” And, said the author, “spending a lot of time with kids helps me in my work. I have to be around them, to see what’s going on.”