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CITY AT A CROSSROADS | Examining a defining moment in a city’s history [page 3]
DETERMINED TO DOMINATE | Tahoma’s WEBSITE | Check the website for breaking news, sports and weather stories. top-ranked girls soccer team a scoring maplevalleyreporter.com or covingtonreporter.com FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2012 machine this season [12]
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
Fostering Together grows with partnerships
Town Hall focuses on high school proposal
BY KRIS HILL
BY KRIS HILL
khill@maplevalleyreporter.com
khill@maplevalleyreporter.com
Little more than a year ago, Lisa Wiscomb saw a need for a foster family support group in Maple Valley. Since starting a Fostering Together group in July 2011 it has grown so large Wiscomb is in search of a new meeting place because it has outgrown the space it’s used at the Greater Maple Valley Community Center. “I reached out to Enumclaw and Covington,” Wiscomb said. “We were hoping to get enough people involved so we could put groups in each community, but everyone has grown so close we’ve just kept it the way it is.” On the fourth Tuesday of every month the group meets to provide training for foster parents, an opportunity for their children to play and socialize with one another while also allowing families
Tahoma School District Superintendent Mike Maryanski took his case for a new high school in the donut hole in Maple Valley to residents at the city’s annual Town Hall meeting Oct. 3 at Lake Wilderness Lodge. Maryanski told the audience that if the district is going to have one building which is driven by a vision — something the district doesn’t have now — then the high school should be just that. “We want to build a regional learning center,” Maryanski said. “We’re trying to create a learning culture and a living culture that young people can be proud of.” Part of the plan includes partnering with the city to develop its property near the proposed site of the new high school on 156 acres of land owned by King County in the heart of the city. The site is
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To Fight Like A Girl
Covington woman shoots for the stars with first novel
Natalie Holcomb of Bees In The Burbs, which is based in Maple Valley, rearranges fliers in the booth at the final Saturday of the Maple Valley Farmers Market 2012 season Oct. 6. Holcomb wears a shirt that goes with the theme of the weekend of breast cancer awareness. KRIS HILL, The Reporter To view a slide show go to www.maplevalleyreporter.com
wrote another world.” Though “Shooting Stars” was Hodgson’s first foray into novels, she had previously written articles about horseback riding for magazines. Hodgson describes “Shooting Stars” as a clean YA that admittedly utilizes several cliches such as coming of age BY TJ MARTINELL and teen romance. It also has the protagonists discover special abilities and powers and the insecurity which comes tmartinell@maplevalleyreporter.com with it. Covington resident Leslie Hodgson aimed high with her But, as even some of the book reviewers on Amazon. first published novel, a young adult fiction book that incor- com have said, she uses it as a starting point for her own porates her love of stars with her background in horseback type of story and avoids well-tread literary ground. riding. For example, she said, while she is a fan of the “Shooting Stars” tells the story of two siblings, a Harry Potter series, there are no wizards, and the brother and sister, who live in a lighthouse but disconcept of a highly evolved race of humans sounds cover they are a part of a highly evolved race from more akin to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Princess of the Zodiac Constellations. Mars” rather than “Twilight” — though Hodgson Hodgson said she first conceived of the story six said there are no aliens, either. years ago while sitting out in a lawn chair in the A part of this is also a reflection of Hodgon’s backyard. own personal experiences, which she has integratWhile gazing at the sky, she witnessed a shooting Leslie Hodgson ed into the book in several ways. The young girl star, which proved to be the inspiration for both the protagonist, she said, shares many of her thoughts story, as well as the book title. and struggles at that same age, especially towards “I wondered ‘What if that was a person out there,’” she horses, another theme in the novel. said. “That night I was there I saw it as a complete book.” The protagonists’ companionship with animals borrows Another factor, she was, were family problems which heavily from Hodgson’s work in horseback riding. Many writing helped alleviate. real life horses she worked with she converted into fictional “A lot of people escape into books,” she said. “But this beasts. time I wrote one. They have to be in other worlds, and I “I just put wings on them,” she said.
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Much more of a traditional writer in a sense, Hodgson said she writes her rough drafts on notepad with a pen and then later transcribes them onto the computer, where she also takes the opportunity to edit them. This allows her to spend less time distracted by small red lines underneath incorrectly spelled words, grammar, or punctuation and focus on the actual writing. “It definitely changed and evolved,” she said. “Every time I put the pen to the paper it just came to me. But if I ever didn’t feel right I would leave it alone for a couple days, come back and then fix it and it would flow.” Hodgson, who is married and has three children, was finally able to complete the novel. Having heard stories of repeated rejections by selfpublished authors she respected, she chose to go the selfpublishing route than through traditional publishing. At the same time, she sent the book to an author for feedback, which ultimately led to her trimming the novel down from 100,000 to 70,000 words. Currently, Hodgson is working on the sequel, which she said is halfway completed. Having a family of young children to raise, however, can be a challenge as more often than not her pages are ripped, dripping with drool, or scribbles. “Shooting Stars” can be purchased on amazon.com by searching for “Leslie Hodgson.”
Reach TJ Martinell at 425-432-1209 ext. 5052. To comment on this story go to covingtonreporter.com.