Today (Wednesday, June 6, 2018) is the first day of TEENS Publish 2018! All of the applications that were received have been accepted, and the program is full. If you applied, you should have received a welcome email, and we will see you at 2:30. Parking is more limited than normal, but the front door is open. If you can’t find a parking spot in our lot, you can park at First Baptist Church and walk across.
TEENS Publish is a free 8-week summer creative writing (and/or illustrating) program for aspiring writers and illustrators going into 7th-12th grade (or just graduated high school). This program is led by author Molly Blaisdell (who also writes as Cece Barlow).
Workshops will be held every Wednesday, 2:30 to 5:00, from June 6 to August 8, except July 4. Each week will focus on a different topic related to writing or illustrating and publishing. Manuscripts will be due to editors on July 18. July 25 is an editorial day where we will choose the anthology name, make editorial decisions, etc. Final manuscripts will be due August 1. There is one extra day built into the schedule. Participants must be able to attend most of the meetings and meet deadlines.
Applications will be accepted during the month of May only, and the group will be limited to 15 people. Applications are now available at Ringer Library’s reference desk and online (download Microsoft Word or pdf file). Return completed applications to Kendra at the Reference Desk. This program is now full. If anyone else applies, we will start a waiting list. All applications that were received by May 20 were accepted. Everyone who was accepted has been sent a welcome email. If you turned in your application by May 20 and did not get an email, please contact Kendra at (979) 764-3416 to verify I have your correct email address. If you have not applied yet and are still interested, you can turn in an application to be on a waiting list in case someone else cancels.
Teens complete one polished piece by the end of the 8-week program. Each participant chooses whether that will be a short story, the first chapter of a novel, a nonfiction article, poetry, or illustrations. Upon approval of the editor, each participant has one polished piece published in the TEENS Publish anthology (each person is limited to 3000 words or 12 pages). After first publication, all rights revert to the authors. There will be an author’s release party held in late September or early October.
Anthologies from each year are available to check out from the Young Adult (teen) Fiction section of the Ringer Library (College Station) and the Mounce Library (Bryan). Searching for Teens Publish in the library catalog will pull them up, and the call numbers all start with Y-F Teens. The 2015 title is The New Generation. The 2016 title is Words Were Spilt. The 2017 title is Chaotic Creativity.
For more information, contact Kendra at kperkins@bryantx.gov or (979) 764-3416.
There is a blog at the bottom of the page with updates from the 2017 program (oldest post at the bottom).
