It’s been my great honour the last couple of years to work with the Teen Writers Group at my local library. We meet every two weeks on a Thursday afternoon with a writing exercise and some discussion about writing.
Today was the first group of the year. As these are teenagers, I thought a bowl of lollies might be a good prompt to kick start the group!
The two packets I bought were consumed quite quickly – it doesn’t take long with 13 teenagers present! There were also so great stories written. The kids wrote stories about snakes playing soccer, dinosaurs drinking milk, witches doing things with mint balls, as well as universes inspired by the lollies the kids had chosen.
As well as our regular group and school holiday activities, the library ran a Summer writing challenge in conjunction with the Oakleigh Music Festival. The topic of the challenge was “The Music In Me” and we had nearly 50 entries! We are in the process of turning these into an anthology to be launched on March 5.
I have been reading the stories that have been included and they are amazing. Many of them I wouldn’t have guessed the age of the author. The age range of these writers is from 10 to 18. As soon as the book is available, I’ll share the links so you can all get a copy to support these aspiring authors.
Working with the teen writers has been an amazing experience for me. As much as I can, I participate in the writing exercises to and I can see that it’s helping my writing as well as helping them.
