Metro Atlanta startup helps children across the U.S. become published authors
A growing number of children across the U.S. are becoming published authors thanks to the help of a writing software startup in metro Atlanta.
Terri Asberry Jr. is really serious about baseball.
"It's just always been my expertise, my peace," Ashberry said. "You know, I mean, I feel like nobody can take that from me."
That's why baseball is mainly what he writes about, and what led Asberry to getting published at 14 years old.
Asberry met his writing coach and fellow baseball fanatic, Anthony Joiner, in a summer literacy program for young people two years ago. Joiner helped Asberry and more than 30 other children self-publish an anthology using Joiner's book-writing software, Blooksy. Asberry and Joiner have been friends ever since.
"I started telling him stories about how I hit a game-winning homerun," Asberry said. "You know, back for my little league team, my first home run. And we kind of elaborated on that. You know, put it in a haiku poem, different stuff like that."
"We know that students constantly write about things that they're not necessarily familiar with," Joiner said. "So we write about Romeo, Juliet, all these things that they learn about. We focus on writing their own story."
Asberry is one of 500 children and 1,400 adults whom Joiner says he has helped get published nationwide since 2023 on subjects they're passionate about. A short story, poem, and haiku of Asberry's are published in an anthology called "Through Our Eyes: Chapters from Teenage Minds," alongside more than 30 other children's works.
"[T]hat allows them to tap in, more creatively than they would with something they're not familiar with," Joiner said.
Dr. Rebecca Parshall is the deputy director for Learn4Life, an organization focused on improving literacy and overall academic performance among metro Atlanta children. She says there is a literacy crisis among children in Atlanta nationwide, noting that only 38% of third-graders in the metro are proficient in reading and writing their end-of-year state tests. She says poor access to early childhood education is one significant factor behind the problem. But she says prioritizing oral language education, reading comprehension, and encouraging children to write can help reverse the problem.
"Parents and educators can really cultivate a love of reading and writing. That's the most important thing. That reading and writing doesn't feel like a chore. Reading and writing are ways to build empathy. They are ways to build imagination. There are opportunities for us to step inside someone else's shoes and really understand the perspective of a character in a book that you're either reading or writing yourself," Parshall said.
Asberry's father, Terri Asberry Sr., says his son has performed well in school since he was small, and that he demonstrated a talent for writing by the time he was in the second grade. But Asberry Sr. says he's thrilled that his son has poured into his writing now as a teenager. He enjoys reading his son's words about the sport they both love. He says he hopes his son keeps writing and that he can see Jr.'s work being translated to the silver screen.
"How he expresses himself in writing is, I say, satisfying," Asberry Sr. said. "It's a gratification for us to know where he, you know, knows what he's thinking, and to be able to see him illustrate that in words is amazing."
As he holds a copy of "Through Our Eyes," Asberry Jr. says seeing his name in print exhilarates him.
"My work, I feel like I definitely put my all into it, so I kind of do deserve it, he said. "But just to see myself in a book like that lets me know I can go out there and do more."
The teen said he hopes this experience helps strengthen his essay-writing skills for when it's time to apply to college. Maybe it will help him get on the bestseller's list one day, too.