TEENS Publish is a free 8-week summer creative writing (and/or illustrating) program for aspiring writers and illustrators who are currently (spring 2022) in 7th-12th grade. This program is led by author Molly Blaisdell (who also writes as Cece Barlow), with the assistance of Ringer librarian Kendra Perkins.
For 2022, TEENS Publish will be meeting from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, from June 8 through August 3; no meeting on July 6. The 2022 program will be hybrid (Ringer Library and Zoom).
2022 applications are currently being accepted. Applications are available online (fill out a Google form or download an application) and in person at Ringer Library. Completed applications should be submitted online or returned to Kendra Perkins at Ringer Library in College Station. For more information, contact Kendra Perkins.
The program size is limited to 12 to 15 participants. Applicants will be expected to submit a short sample of their work (one page maximum). Starting in 2020, we decided to only include fiction and poetry.
Teens complete one polished piece by the end of the 8-week program. A lot of the work will need to be done on your own. Each participant chooses whether their piece will be a short story, the first few chapters of a novel, or poems. Upon approval of the editor, each participant will have 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.
Each participant receives a free copy of the anthology, and a copy that can be checked out is added to the library collection at both Ringer and Mounce. There is an authors’ party in the fall when the teens read samples of their work. The 2020 and 2021 parties were virtual.
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. The 2018 title is An Overwhelming Surplus of Skittles. The 2019 title is Not Just Ink and Paper. The 2020 title is The Isolated Generation. The 2021 title is A Spark in the Void.
For more information, contact Kendra Perkins at kperkins@bryantx.gov or (979) 209-6347.
