The student news site of Fishers High School, Fishers, Indiana

Tiger Times

The student news site of Fishers High School, Fishers, Indiana

Tiger Times

The student news site of Fishers High School, Fishers, Indiana

Tiger Times

1890s postcard of the University of Berlin (now called the Humboldt University of Berlin). The school’s founder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, implemented a novel educational model at the university, which emphasized holistic, curiosity-driven learning, rather than exclusively vocational, market-driven learning.
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Popular teacher finds ‘Catharsis’

Catharsis, by definition, is the act of healing one’s mental state through actions. That is what Cat attempts to do throughout the novel,” Broviak said.

Dave Broviak is a seventh-grade English teacher at Fishers Junior High, but D. Andrew Campbell is the author of the novel Catharsis. What his audience might not know is that Dave Broviak and D. Andrew Campbell are the same person; he chose along with many authors to have another name as a writer.

Catharsis“The idea for Catharsis came about in the spring of 2012 when I was reading two other books, Hero by Mike Lupica and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith,” Broviak said. “How would a kid react to finding out they have super powers?” That was the question that fueled his writing process for Catharsis, his novel shows a realistic view of a teenager that has just found out they have super powers … and that it is not a fun thing.

“What about a kid who discovers they are a vampire? But they don’t know they are a vampire! They have to discover it in the hard way,” he said, and that was his last step for finalizing the story that he wanted to write out.

His students were his audience, therefore he was writing for his students; thinking about whether or not they would enjoy reading certain sections. Technology aided with getting his book out there. By being able to put his novel into an eBook, more of his students had the opportunity to read it. Even though on numerous occasions he was unmotivated and wanted to quit writing, he always knew that he had an audience that would read his work.

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Catharsis follows the protagonist, Cat, throughout her journey of being a vampire. Since Cat was a teenage girl, she was easily relatable to me while I was reading. Watching Cat throughout the story put into perspective of how I would feel if I were in her shoes. I felt like I really knew Cat, and by having that connection it made me really drawn into the plot line of the book; I did not want to stop reading (which was probably why I finished the whole book in one day).

The title is one of the factors that can determine a novels success, so how did he come up with the name Catharsis? “Catharsis, by definition, is the act of healing one’s mental state through actions. That is what Cat attempts to do throughout the novel,” Broviak said.

“Cat is essentially Bella from Twilight if the story line were treated more realistically,” Broviak said. “I went with the idea of what would really happen to a good, wholesome kid who got bitten by a vampire and had to make the choices that that lifestyle would ensue”.

Recently many vampire related shows, movies and books have come out; including Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood. I usually get bored of vampire inspired books and shows, but with Catharsis it felt new. It did not have the same plotline like other books; of a girl wanting to be a vampire and fall in love. I liked how it was more realistic, it made it easier to read.

Questions including “Can you commit suicide if your religion says it’s a sin?” and “What if that suicide ends your being a terror to other humans?” are what had haunted and inspired Broviak to begin writing.“I wanted to create the character that I had always wanted to read about”, he said, and that was how the book came to be.

Dave Broviak, or D. Andrew Campbell plans on continuing Cat’s journey with two to three more books; be sure to keep a lookout for this upcoming series of novels.

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The student news site of Fishers High School, Fishers, Indiana
Popular teacher finds ‘Catharsis’