“Move over Huck Finn and Oliver Twist, make room for Ren, The Good Thief’s one-handed but quick fingered and witted orphan, thief, hero—I loved him, and his book.”
—Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
Hannah is available to come and speak at schools, colleges, and graduate programs. To get in touch, please email: schoolvisit (at) hannahtinti.com.
A letter from Hannah Tinti about visiting schools:
Over the past year, I have visited grammar schools, high schools, colleges, universities and continuing education programs to talk about my novel, The Good Thief. Each place has been special. At one high school, the class had made collages of the novel, including a diorama of the hospital in North Umbrage, where Ren witnesses an amputation (see bloody scenario, left!). One professor used The Good Thief to lecture his undergraduates on modern Gothic Literature. At a graduate creative writing program, the Master’s candidates used my novel to try their hands at literary criticism, and wrote their first reviews, analyzing the religious symbolism and putting the book in context with other New England writers. And at one of the continuing education programs I visited, which catered mostly to recent immigrants, I met a class who had been learning English by reading The Good Thief to each other out loud.
To my delight, The Good Thief seems to be appealing to readers across a broad swath of age groups and reading levels. In this way it has accomplished what I set out to do, which was to write an old-fashioned type of book, inspired by the classics that made me fall in love with reading, such as Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. At the same time, I wanted the prose to be in a clear, modern style, with plenty of action to keep the pages turning, but addressing the larger issues of life, such as right and wrong and God and sin and what it means to truly find redemption.
One of the most moving school visits I’ve had so far was at Blue Hills Regional Technical School. It was there that I met a woman who shared with me that she’d always struggled to read, and felt stupid because of it. But while reading The Good Thief, for the first time in her life she’d been engaged and excited by a book, and found herself moving ahead of the class, turning to the next chapter. “I felt smart,” she told me. “I felt like I was a part of things.”
What she said reminded me of why I write in the first place—to connect with others and to explore larger issues of humanity, but also to share my own love of books and reading. This love was planted in me by my parents, but it was my teachers who helped it to grow and flourish. So here’s to you, English teachers, for fighting the good fight: Mrs. Sledge, Mr. Sloane, Mrs. Wilcox, Mrs. Wall, Ms. Gezari, Mr. Bradford, Ms. Boyd, Ms. Marshall, Ms. Shapiro, Ms. Homes and Mr. Doctorow. Thank you for introducing me to a brand new world.
Some of the schools Hannah has visited or will be visiting:
- Bryn Mawr
- Bishop Fenwick High School
- Blue Hills Regional Tech
- Boston College High School
- Cleveland State University
- Coastal Carolina University
- Colgate University
- Columbia University
- Connecticut College
- Hamilton College
- Hunter College
- New York University
- Padeia School
- P.S. 129
- Purchase College
- Rice University
- Stanford University
- Stuyvesant High School
- Sweet Briar College
- The New School
- University of Nebraska
- University of New Haven
- University of Illinois
- Washington College
