This year, SVHS welcomed many authors for the annual authors day festival. Having an array of guest speakers for students to attend and learn about their writing career and more. While some authors are returning from previous years such as Dr. Alex Filippenko and wade davis
Featuring multiple novels written by the speakers given out freely by the library, gives opportunities for many students to have their books signed after presentations.
Starting off Authors Day was Luis Miranda Jr. a Latino activist who spoke about his story and how he became an activist, helping inspire many students on campus. Miranda spoke about how he became an activist and the journeys he went through, he also introduced his wife Luz Towns-Miranda. Mentioning his well known son and other children within his speech. After his presentation was finished he took questions from the crowd.
The 3rd period has two authors available for students to go see, with Anthropologist and Geographer Wade Davis making his return to campus, speaking on his career. In Golton Hall Jeffery Rosen scholar and historian and author of The Pursuit of Happiness. Rosen spoke about how his studies as a historian brought him to write his book, mentioning how he managed to follow the Pursuit of happiness through waking up before sunset every morning and opening a book first thing. He recommended students to do the same and mentioned how social media has negative effects on many.
Dr. Alex Filippenko voted best professor by u.c berkeley, Filippenko used the term from anthropologist Manra “ follow the water” to debunk the idea of extraterrestrial life, when mentioning the radio signals that were allegedly put out from space he stated “The wow signal from decades ago. In a chart with a bunch of numbers indicating noise, a signal came from the Sagittarius constellation, but it was never repeated.” Without enough evidence to prove such life out in space, he comments that many need evidence to back up their claims of extraterrestrial life, closing off his presentation.
Anita Gale Jones, a new face to the campus, spoke on her novel The Peach Seed with an interviewer. highlighting the story of an African American family throughout the times, going through different phases of history as well as their struggles throughout it. Jones read a small section of her book to students and spoke on the reasoning behind the title of her novel The Peach seed. Named after a small monkey that was carved out of a peach seed that her older cousin made for her and her sister. Creating a new family tradition of carving peach seed monkeys for the younger generation. Jones also played a video of a trailer for her book to give students a preview to what the book contains
Many of SVHS math students attended math magician and mathematics professor Arthur Benjamin, who opened the show by pulling one student out of the crowd to do an “invisible card trick” immediately wowing the crowd. Additionally, Benjamin starting asking the crowd for two digit and 3 digit numbers as well as inviting 5 students to the stage with calculators to check his work. then squaring them in his head, no matter the number’s size. After enchanting the crowd with his math magic, he showed how he was able to do it with his method of “criss crossing the numbers”. Nearing the end of his show he took questions from students and recommended his novel The Magic Of math
To end off the day, Graphic Artist and illustrator Craig Frazier showed students his artwork, and the inspiration that came to him in order to draw them out. Showcasing his many different styles and the childrens books that he illustrated. Frazier stayed behind after his presentation to speak to students, Closing off authors day all together.
