Hudson third grader’s story featured on national podcast

By Angela Gartner

Noel O’Sullivan, 8, of Hudson had an idea for a story. Noel, whose interest in writing spans from books to movie scripts, was inspired by his thirdgrade class guinea pig and a debate over the new pet’s name.

“The New Class Pet” written by Noel was recently published nationally on Story Pirates podcast and digitally. The podcast features songs and sketches based on stories written by kids through celebrity comedians.

“Kids are innately creative geniuses,” says Story Pirates co-founder and CEO Benjamin Salka. “We’re here to support that by providing positive reinforcement and by adapting kids’ stories on the world stage. The reason to submit a story to the Story Pirates is so that kids can be celebrated for their amazing work, which in turn makes them want to keep writing. A lot of the time, kids feel ordered to learn and grow. Story Pirates is the opposite of that. We make such a big deal about the imaginative stories kids send us in order to provide the spark that makes them want to take their own literacy and communication skills to the next level.”

For Noel and his parents Conor and Lindsay, it all began with a car ride when they heard about the Story Pirates podcast and their story submissions. With his parents’ editing help, he submitted his story in September and waited to hear back. When he didn’t hear anything months later, Noel thought they didn’t like his story, but then came the call days before Christmas — Story Pirates wanted to publish his piece.

“As a whole family, we were really excited about it,” says his dad, Conor O’Sullivan. “We enjoyed listening to (the podcast) too — and hearing all the ways they were inspired by his story to make it their own creation on the podcast.”

Noel was included on the podcast with an interview and was also asked to provide advice to other kids. He suggested to not to stop yourself from writing a crazy idea.

Meghan O’Neill, a contributing writer on the Story Pirates Podcast, who adapted Noel’s story says “Noel’s story resonated with me as such a big moment in the classroom. It felt like a slice of life that I remembered from my own elementary school experience where this seemingly small task bleeds over into personal and even school politics. Lots of fun levels to play with. And the dialogue that Noel gave us felt very real.”

For Noel, it was inspired by events that happened, such as some of the names chosen by classmates for the guinea pig like “Lewis White” and the winning name “S’more” were real.

I like to write because it makes other people feel good when they read it,” Noel says.