LANDIS — Corriher-Lipe Middle School students got a chance to explore their creative sides when a published Colombian author visited campus on Friday.

Principal April Williamson said students who joined author Karen Penuela Montanez in the media center expressed interest in becoming writers.

Montanez’s husband, Mauro Rodriguez, is the English as a second language teacher at Corriher-Lipe. Montanez does not speak much English, so Rodriguez was there to translate.

The book Montanez wrote is called “Coracolas,” a mashup of two Spanish words relating to the heart and a conch shell. Those two themes are central to the book’s message.

Rodriguez said that Montanez has been working on becoming a writer for a long time. Before authoring books, Montanez worked in academic circles, producing essays and other long-form writing.

With “Coracolas,” the process was organic and developed from her own experiences of leaving her home country of Colombia and coming to the U.S.

The conch in the book represents the story that each individual carries with them.

“It is related to our language, and it is related to our foods and our clothing as well,” Rodriguez said. “It is all of our story. Sometimes, when you move to a different country, you feel like you have to forget those things to start a new life.

“That is what she first experienced when she moved here. This book is the result of that story.”

In doing that, Montanez can still feel close to the culture she left behind.

“Sometimes in your home country, you have everything there, the food and everything,” Rodriguez said. “Then, when you go to a different place, you start to miss those things that you had that you never thought you would be without.”

“(Writing) is a way to keep memories alive. Our knowledge and memories can be taken from one place to another and be shared from the individual memories and the collective memories we all have.”

Eighth-grader Morgan Clarke was one of the students at the presentation on Friday. She said she loves to write.

“I love that you can take inspiration from your experiences or even fantasy that you may imagine yourself as and have it come alive within a story,” Clarke said.

Clarke was drafting her creative story on Friday along with the other students in the media center. Her story’s protagonist was a creature much like the Loch Ness Monster, but in Clarke’s eyes, it wasn’t a monster.

“In her story, she is sad because she can’t go on land,” Clarke said. “She can’t hang out with humans. That gave me inspiration to do a story based on how she imagines that the land is full of people who have fun and are celebrating while she is stuck by herself.”

Clarke said that she is descended from Irish ancestry and drew similarities with the communal nature of Irish folklore to that shared by Montanez about Colombia.

They might speak different languages, but the things that tie them together, such as food, song and traditions, while unique to their own countries, comprise their collective cultural memories.

“Irish people are (known) for their festivities and folklore,” Clarke said. “I feel like folklore is one of those things that no matter what heritage you are a part of, you have folklore.”

With a little luck, Clarke’s story may add another layer to that collective memory.