Jennifer Shirley wrote a book of poetry as her senior project to express her grief over losing family members and to use writing as a form of therapy. The process of writing and publishing the book was challenging and required multiple rounds of editing poems, organizing photographs to accompany the poems, designing the layout, cover, and getting an ISBN number to publish the book. Through this process, Jennifer learned about the many steps involved in publishing a book beyond just writing. Publishing her book of poetry helped lift a burden off her shoulders and allowed her to open up more about her experiences.

1. Jennifer Shirley
Mrs. Corbett
AP Literature
7, April 2012
Senior Project Speech
I am one of many adolescents that have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
When I was eleven years old my brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. From that day
forward I knew my life would not be the same. Two years later I lost my cousin to cancer when
she was only eight years old. After what I have gone through in my life one would think I would
be bitter towards life, but that is not the case. I have sought to better understand myself and the
world around me, which leads me to my research topic. My research topic is how literature can
be used as a therapy tool. While doing my research paper I sought to find how literature can be
used in therapy through writing journals, letters, and poetry. I learned from my research that
“shamans and witchdoctors chanted poetry for the well-being of the tribe or individual”. Also, I
learned that literature as therapy is called bibliotherapy. For my project I wrote a book of poetry
which is essentially my personal therapy tool that explains my life journey.
My product is my book of poetry and photography. I chose this product for three reasons:
to honor my lost loved ones, to express my grief, and to challenge myself.
This product was not an easy one to undertake.
There are many steps to writing a book and I shall explain from step one. First off, I had to write
all of the poems as well as the introduction dedication and the inside panels. This step is the most

2. time consuming and can get very tedious. But it is also the most rewarding. But a close second is
taking all of the pictures that accompany and reflect each poem. Once the initial writing was
finished I had to go through and edit my writing. I edited my poems three times and then I had a
friend edit them and lastly my literature teacher was generous enough to give the poems a final
edit. Once the editing was finished I went back through and made all the corrections needed.
After having the poems corrected I could focus on organizing and editing my photographs. I
matched all the photos to the appropriate poem and then began to edit them. I kept the
photographs as raw as possible for a more authentic look. Most of the photos just needed to be
cropped and changed into black and white. By this time the meat of the book was completed so I
moved onto the layout which includes spacing, fonts, page numbers, and inserting blank pages.
Which many seen easy enough, but it is very tedious considering that you are looking at close to
the same format as you were before which makes it very hard to commit to a design. Next I had
to determine what I was going to entitle my book. I wanted the title to describe the whole book
and my life all in one and I think I have achieved that with the title being “The Rest is Still
Unwritten”. Once the title was chosen I had to design my cover. In designing my cover I wanted
it to reflect the book, the title, and me. I first fell in love with poetry while reading Shel
Silverstein’s poetry in elementary school, which is where the whimsical design comes in; the
words are all in my handwriting and are traits that I find important in life. I also chose blue as the
background to represent the sky which seems to never end. Also I chose the font and size for the
title as well as sizing the font to be placed on the spine of the book. The book was now finished
and I had to apply for an ISBN number in order for my book to be kept in libraries. And I finally
had to decide on the price of my book which I had to take in account the hard cover and the
jacket which is a more expensive style, but since my book is an art piece rather that a novel I

3. found the hardback well suited. Once all of this was settled I sent my book off to the printer. I
then received a proof which I read over and sent for the rest of my books.
My project facilitator was Farris Yawn the owner of Yawn’s Bookstore in downtown
Canton. I chose Mr. Yawn for a few reasons: He owns his own publishing company, he
enjoys publishing local authors, and he is extremely good at what he does. He helped me
to understand what goes into writing a book and he helped me break down the overall
product into smaller goals so the process did not seem as daunting as it really was.
Writing a book, many challenges arise such as; formatting issues, writer’s block, and
picture editing problems. For example, we had to overcome the formatting issue of page
numbers. I had to manually insert page numbers which may not sound bad but since I had
blank pages in my book due to picture and poem match up I did not want the blank pages
numbered. So in the words of Mr. Yawn, we had to trick the computer into thinking that
the blank page did not exist by inserting two different page breaks. Also, I had to
overcome writer’s block which can be very discouraging. At some times I had to just
close my computer and walk away from my writing, otherwise I would be too frustrated
to continue my work. Finally, I had to deal with picture editing. My laptop does not have
a camera card reader so I had to download all the pictures to my mother’s computer and
then use a flash drive to transfer them to my computer, and then I began to edit them.
From this process I learned that Microsoft Office Word can do a lot more than I
use to give it credit for. Also, I have learned that I can do anything if I try and that
through publishing my book I have had a huge burden lifted off of my shoulders and it
has really helped me to open up. I would enjoy writing another book in the future, not

4. only does it feel good to write, but seeing your name on the cover of something so
official is mind blowing.
I have learned that writing a book is not just about writing, it is also about
formatting, color, book size and many more factors. Also it is about putting your soul
onto paper and conveying emotions through words. I want to challenge all of you to keep
a journal and leave all your emotions on the pages. You will not believe how liberating it
is and when you go back and read previous entries you will see how much you have
grown.
My future plan is to attend Western Carolina University in the fall and major in physical
therapy rather than psychology because I am afraid that I would not be able to leave my
work at work. But with physical therapy I will still be helping people overcome
challenges they face in their lives.
Thank you for all of your time and I hope you have enjoyed my presentation.
Please feel free to ask any questions you have.