1.   Full Name

Sohyun Kate Yoon (called Katt or Kate)

2.   Your parents names?

My parents are Haejin and Intaek Yoon

3.   Grade level/school/teacher

I’m in Grade six, at Dalewood Middle School, and my teacher is Mrs. Whelan. I am in the gifted program.

4.   How long have you been writing?

I don’t know exactly, but I do know I’ve been writing at least 6 years. Basically, since grade one. I’ve only known English that long (6 years, although I may have been writing in Korean before that; I honestly can't remember), but I remember that in grade 2, I wrote a story that I read in front of the whole school. That, in a way, boosted my confidence as a writer, and I’ve enjoyed writing ever since.

5.   Why did you write this particular “type” of a story with the Frank family as a focus?

Let me start with that I LOVE history. It’s amazing how much we can learn from the past. My hero is Miep Gies, for what she did and how she helped the Franks.

The idea started as a sequel to one of my other stories, and then I realized how much it sounded like something about Anne Frank's diary, so I changed it a little and made it this story.
I've written a lot of other short stories with historic themes, and I can't turn away from WW2. It's just so terrible and yet it's amazing how everyone pushed through together and finally ended it.

6.   What type of research did you do to learn about the taste of the tea? The look of

the calendar?  The messy desk?

It was mostly from personal experiences. The tea? Paper was the first thing I thought of, and I really liked it, because when paper’s wet it’s all pulp-like, and I know paper tastes REALLY bad. (Don’t ask me how I know. *grin*) The calendar? In primary school, teachers always used to cross out every day with markers and whatnot. It inspired me, and I think I could have described it in almost a negative way, because I never really liked it; it always looked so ugly and messy.
The desk? Oh...you'd hate to see my desk.

7.   If you were to write a sequel to this story what it be like?

I don't think I ever will write a sequel because I liked the ending too much, so full of hope and all. But if I did write a sequel, it would involve Miep Gies, Henk Gies and Otto Frank finding out that Anne and Margot were not coming back. It would be chock full of emotion, and it would involve all that the WW2 survivors had to deal with.

8.   Can you give your readers two different writing tips to help them in their writing?

1. Write what interests you, what motivates you, what affects you in your life. If you know more about it and you have more experience, then the story will be better. It only depends on skill so much, or so I think. Anyone could, for example, write about hockey, but I would never be very good at it considering I can barely play. However, an NHL hockey player would be great at it, because he would KNOW about hockey that much more, he'd have experienced it, he'd have FELT it. Don't try to write something you don't know much about.

2. On your first draft, DON'T ever be picky.  You can change the whole story later, if you want, but if you're picky the first time around, you'll never get to finishing your story/writing piece. Write whatever comes to you. Remember, you can change it all later.

The same goes for ideas. If you get a good idea, but then realize it'll be hard to do it, don't discard it. Write it down someplace, and when you have some spare time, try to fix it so it DOES work.

9.   Do you have any advice to other young authors?

Yeah, sure. There are people on the internet that have tips for writers; I'm not very experienced, but most of them are. Take advice from other people, and try to IMPROVE yourself. After all, even the greatest writers weren't born great writers.

One more thing. Keep a notebook and pen with you wherever you go. You might find some good inspiration. Even in public washrooms or school auditoriums. If you have a notepad/notebook with you, you can jot down notes and reminders whenever you need to, and also, if inspiration for a story comes to you while you're shopping or etc., you'll have it there with you to write it down.

Even Friends Have Their Secrets: The Diary of Anne Frank

Summer 1945. Amsterdam, Holland.

I stop for a second to reach over for my cold cup of tea. I can’t concentrate anymore. The words go out of focus when I try to read – honestly, I’ve even tried reading aloud. I’m not the type of person who makes excuses to get out of work.

The stack of papers on my desk keeps growing. Maybe I should go out and take a walk, get a breath of fresh air? That could help – but I don’t think it’ll help me get my work done any faster, so I’ll have to get this done first. Then at least I won’t have double the work tomorrow.

I could call in sick tomorrow. My headaches are bad enough. But then, the day after that, I’d have triple the work…and…

Sigh.
I take another sip of tea. It takes like wet shredded paper (putting more tea in it doesn’t make it stronger, just more pulp-ier). Stupid, stupid wartime restrictions. No wait, don’t even go there.

Sigh.

For the something-millionth time that day, I glance at the clock, very quickly as if I don’t really want to know what time it is. One more hour…get it done and over with, Miep. But it’s really not that easy at times like this. I reach for the tea again (trying to get rid of the terrible aftertaste that lingered by drinking more of it)…and, oh wait, it’s all gone.
Sigh.
Not that I like it, but I get up to go pour myself some more tea. As I exit the office, I’m thinking I really need to clean the place up sometime. It’s just the desk, really, but it’s so cluttered that it typically takes five minutes to find a good pen that works (the ones they give you at work have two drops of ink in them, I swear. What a waste of plastic. At least the manufacturing of cheap, inefficient pens haven’t been affected by wartime restrictions. No, Miep, don’t go there-).

Sigh.

I think I really am going mad. My coworkers are more or less aware of it. They’re – I think – scared to come in my office. Most of them say an occasional hello-Miep-lovely-weather-today sort of greeting, but it’s the same thing they say to the grumpy man across the street, anyhow.

Sigh.

I think about them every day – no, not my coworkers – and it’s part of what makes me so distant sometimes. Not a day has gone by since I haven’t thought of them. I miss them terribly, and I really want to know what has happened to them. I sometimes wonder, was there more I could have done? But it’s useless thinking about things like that. In any case, it’s more of a “will they come back” question that’s more important. Yes, a few Jews that I am acquainted with have come back – what they tell me is terrible, I almost don’t want to believe it – but none of the Franks have come back. I know they will – yet at the same time, a little part of me, scared of being disappointed, disagrees.

Sigh.

I enter my office once again, holding the lukewarm tea in one hand. I put it down for a second (probably making a ring or stain, but those wash off easily, anyhow) and pick up my dark red marker.
I head to the calendar on one side of my desk. It’s impossible to miss the dark red lines already covering the page, diagonally running through the boxes for each day – one and a half ugly little rows of X’s.

Sigh.

I make another line slowly, right next to my last, letting my marker run across the box. The marker squeaks, and the line will probably bleed through. I don’t really care.

Sigh.

I don’t really know why I do it. No one asks, either. So I just do it. Maybe I’m keeping track of the days, maybe I’m doing it to keep me sane, maybe I just like having something routine, something that will never change. There have been too many twists and turns in my life already.

Sigh.

Many Jews are coming back now. Many work camps have been liberated. Auschwitz, to name one. Freed by our heroes, the Allies. If the Franks had been in one of those camps and had survived it, they could be coming back now.

Sigh.

I still have Anne’s diary. I never read it. I never will. I will give it back to her hands, and her hands only. And she’ll get married and have children and pass the diary on to her own children, and so it’ll go on. She’ll look back to those times and think how horrible it was, and yet how even in all that suffering, you could make someone smile and it would be the greatest of gifts.

As I’ve said, I’m not reading it. Even friends have their secrets. Yes, I was very close with Anne Frank and Otto, Margot and Edith; I helped them get by in hiding, they helped me through those tough times, yet there’s just too much in there. I would like to respect her privacy; she was always so secret about writing, in hiding, and it would probably be the same way now.

Sigh.

I’ve gone ‘back’ to a life I never really had. Besides childhood, there’s not a time I’ve ever not been in contact – in some way or other – with Otto Frank. And I’m definitely not a child right now. Things will never be the same – the life I’m living now is strange and unfamiliar to me.

Sigh.

Sometimes I find myself thinking, what if?. I try not to. It’s a terrible way to think. The worst part is the diary. Anne’s soul written in a book. It can’t sit in my desk drawer forever.

But that’s just a really negative way to think. Many of my Jewish friends have come back from the prison camps – they say it’s terrible, but they did come back.

Sigh.

Henk is trying so hard to locate them. He’s got time, ever since he stopped working for the Resistance, he’s had lots of spare time. He’ll sit by the train station, all those people coming back, and he’ll ask people about Otto Frank and his family.

No luck yet.

Henk tells me that we’ve got plenty to carry our life on with – we have pieces that we can patch together, substitute here and there, and eventually we’ll have to go on living. He’s right. He always is.