Last week Lakeview High School senior English classes welcomed Dawn Brotherton into their classes. Brotherton has been published six times as of now with a collection of children and adult books.

Brotherton’s first career was very different from writing. She started out in the Air Force as one of the first female launch officers where she received her masters in counseling psychology.

Brotherton’s writing career started with an unfortunate run in with a stalker. After the incident, her family, including her sister, Lakeview math teacher Kelly Prokop, and friends continually told her to write her story, though Brotherton’s thoughts were “It’s not a really good story when you’re living it.” When she wrote down everything that happened, she didn’t know where to go. Eventually she built off that story and worked it into her first book. Brotherton took pieces of her life to incorporate into the plot but she built a new story.

By coming to Lakeview classes, Brotherton hoped to teach the students about generating ideas and inproving writing skills. She advised the students to become avid readers in order to pick and choose aspects to fit their own writing styles.

Senior Mackenzie Hoolihan said Brotherton “gave [her] a lot of really good ideas on ways to develop [her] writing.”

One major skill Brotherton wished to instill on the students was building their confidence. She had always been an avid reader and found the idea of being a writer appealing, but she lacked the confidence as a writer.

Through her school visits, Brotherton hoped to show students there is a lot more to being a writer than the stories. In today’s world you have to be capable of selling yourself.  Senior Emily Coller said that “[Brotherton]’s an inspiration to young writers and shows how you don’t have to have a big break to be successful.” 

While the students were only able to hear Brotherton speak for one period, they learned a great deal. They heard new ways to get out of their comfort zones and explore their writing capabilities. The students can apply these skills throughout the following years and maybe the next author speaking to classes will be one of our very own.