7th grader self-publishes Minecraft-themed novel

State College, Pa. -- “The wind howled at the windows, shaking, battering, trying to get in…This was no normal hurricane, and I knew it.”
 
So begins Lucy Witzke’s first novel “Minewar: The Secret Prophecies,” which tells the story of a pair of siblings and their three cousins who become trapped in the game of Minecraft. The kids encounter numerous characters as they attempt to escape from the book’s primary antagonist, and ultimately, from the game itself. The book ends with the children trapped in a Minecraft cave: “When he spoke, his voice was rough and grating, and his words, though few, were more frigid than any blizzard...The man laughed to himself...‘My name is Chase, and you will not leave this cave.’”
 
Witzke says the idea for the book came from the imaginary Minecraft-themed games she likes to play with her brothers.
 
“I was worried we would forget some of the complex characters and scenarios we had come up with, so I began to write them down,” she says.
 
According to Witzke, the 314-page book is the first in what will become a seven-part series. She spent four months at her iPad recording her thoughts, rearranging them and turning them into a narrative. She often did this work on Sunday afternoons, while her family cheered on their favorite football teams in the next room.
 
A student at the State College Friends Middle School, Witzke credits, in part, the many years she spent writing stories as part of the school’s writing-focused curriculum with her ability to produce the novel. She also thanks her community of Friends School supporters—fellow students and teachers—as well as her family, for their assistance.
 
Witzke’s language arts teacher Laura Beckley was particularly helpful. She was so excited by her student’s commitment to her book that she spent her free time helping to edit the story.
 
“When Lucy was in sixth grade, she organized magnificent, epic fantasy games for the younger children during recess,” says Beckley. “There were cats, fish, mermaids and frightening predators. The younger kids would follow Lucy around, spellbound, acting out the story, begging her for words and pictures and magic. That’s when I knew Lucy was a writer. I’m so proud of her.”  
 
According to Beckley, at State College Friends School, play-based learning is woven into the curriculum across grade levels. 
 
“Creative writing is what imaginative play can look like in middle school,” she says. “Writing like Lucy’s happens when students are given a safe, nurturing space to be children, to ask what if, to fantasize, to create, to play. We value childhood.”
 
On Christmas morning 2017, Witzke awoke to a surprise -- a pile of identically wrapped presents. Opening them revealed 10 copies of her book, hardbound in a sophisticated blue, complete with an official ISBN code on the back.
 
“My parents surprised me by publishing my book,” says Witzke. “I was so excited.”
 
The adventures continue in Book Two of the seven-part “Minewar” series, which is nearly complete. Titled “Minewar: The Wrath of Deathbrine,” the story introduces a villain far worse than Chase. “His hair looked like fire, red and orange sticking up from his head, making everyone wonder how he’d hidden it all under the hood...Call me Deathbrine.”
 
The work is bringing Witzke closer to her eventual career goal—to become a successful fiction writer. But the teen doesn’t want to write just any old fiction.
 
“I want to write crazy fiction,” she says, “just like my Minewar books!”