We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sydney Dunlap a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sydney, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I am hoping that there will be lasting impact from my work to raise awareness of child trafficking and how young people can stay safe. I learned about human trafficking when I saw a movie depicting students hardly older than the elementary school kids I taught being screamed at and shoved into a van, and I watched the whole thing to the end to see what this was. When I found out it was based on a real occurrence, I decided that I would do everything I could to fight against this horrible crime. I became a community outreach leader for an anti-trafficking organization and worked directly with young survivors in juvenile detention. I then wrote a novel to raise awareness of online safety/trafficking risk among kids ages 11-14, an especially vulnerable group. I hope to be remembered as a person who saw something wrong in the world and did everything possible to work toward fixing it. I hope that my novel, It Happened on Saturday, will continue to shed light on these important issues long after I am gone.

Sydney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a longtime educator and now an author who works to help young people become armed with knowledge as they make decisions affecting their safety. I share an interactive program about social media safety for middle school students, as well as a community program for high school students and adults to better understand how to recognize potential trafficking situations and how to help. It Happened on Saturday has been selected as an all-community read in Northern Virginia, and I’ll be participating in a variety of programs about digital safety for kids, teachers, and parents there later this fall. I also speak on panels for librarians and educators about the importance of middle grade literature that delves into difficult topics. We can give young people facts about important issues, but going along with a character on their journey allows for a much deeper understanding of why a particular topic is important.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The publishing industry is known for being very tough to break into, and I had heard lots of discouraging statistics about the odds when I set the goal of becoming a traditionally-published author. One summer, during my break from teaching, I decided to begin trying to write a novel. It was so much more difficult than I’d imagined, and I realized I couldn’t do it successfully without a lot of hard work, time, and collaboration. I became a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and immediately got involved as a volunteer and then conference organizer. I also joined a weekly writing critique group and attended many workshops and craft-related events. I received increasingly encouraging feedback, but never an offer of publication. I had to take a break from writing for years as I raised my kids and taught full-time. But once I had a bit more time, I got back into it, found a story that I needed to share with the world, and am very grateful I didn’t give up.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think it’s amazing when an idea that begins as just a spark turns into a final product. It often takes years for a manuscript to be drafted, revised, edited, worked and reworked over and over until it’s finally aquired by an agent. And then the reworking process begins again until the manuscript is acquired by an editor. And, you guessed it, the process happens one more time as the manuscript gets ready for publication. And then there’s the cover design, interior formatting, along with the copyediting and proofreading. Whew! It’s such a long journey, but so incredibly rewarding to finally hold the book you imagined so long ago.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sydneydunlap.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sydneydunlapwrites/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sydney.dunlap/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydney-dunlap-37a56377/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SydneyDunlap16
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvx-88G_uQM