TeenSpeak Novel Workshop

Where Teen Bookworms Take Center Stage

Avid teen readers pass around books like candy—or moldy bread. When a book speaks to teens, it can spread faster than a press release can be written. Books that don’t cut it languish in the bargain bins.

Authors who write Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction would love to be able to tap into this word-of-mouth (and texting and Facebook and MySpace) world, but usually they only get access to teen readers after the book has been published.

Enter the Pacific Coast Children’s Writers Workshop’s (PCCWW) Teen Program, where teens get to attend a fun conference at Pajaro Dunes with actual writers and editors of the books they read. And not only that, they get to tell the writers what they think… before the book has been published.

“I launched PCCWW as an adult seminar in 2003, integrating the teen program six years later,” explains Nancy Sondel, founding director. “It felt daring to envision an intergenerational workshop—it’s not the typical writers’ event. And it would definitely rock the boat, change the dynamics.”

The traditional workshop features a standard format: adults get together with other writers and a workshop leader, usually a published writer, editor, or publicist for the type of writing they do. The groups critique each other’s work, and the participants get information and advice from those who are established in the business.

To add teens into the mix really does rock the boat at a children’s writing conference—instead of just getting the opinions of other adults, the writers get to hear from their target audience. On top of that, the teens bring their own work and get the same level of critique and mentoring as their adult peers.

“I’ll never forget the experience of hearing professional critiques by an editor, agent, and award-winning author,” says Carrie, a 15-year-old Californian who attended last year. “This was also my first time getting my work critiqued—for real!”

Teen instructor Liz Gallagher is an adult who writes for the teen audience. Her first book was The Opposite of Invisible, a teen novel published by a division of Random House. Teens at the conference will get a peek at her forthcoming novel.

Gallagher says that including teens in the workshop doesn’t just benefit the adults who are writing for them.

“Teens who are serious about writing can do the same kind of exercises, revision, and sharing as adults who are serious about writing,” Gallagher explains. “Some concepts of writing and thinking critically may be newer to teens, but I don’t see teens as being much different than adults who are beginning writers.”

Sondel says that the teens who participated last year benefited in another way. “They were pleased to be respected in this role reversal, in which older folks looked to them for the voice of authority.”

The idea of having teens critique the books written for them grew out of another program founded by Sondel in 2008: TeenSpeak Critiques. Through TeenSpeak, teens are recruited to read and comment on manuscripts from participating authors. The authors get feedback from their target group, and the teens get paid for their work, as well as lots of experience reading critically and writing concisely.

What appeals to teens is as widely varied as what appeals to adults, so writers can get a variety of feedback, depending on what the teen is looking for in a book. One reader, Rachel, 16, is looking for a novel that “pushes the boundaries of mainstream fiction to the breaking point.” Robbie, 15, is interested in “the author’s ability to connect with the reader on a topic that is relevant in the reader’s life.”

The beauty of a writers’ conference stems from a chance assortment of people coming together to share a common interest. In the case of teens who love to read and write, having a core group of such peers is probably a foreign experience.

“Another perk is finding a niche among like-minded peers—where nothing rocks more than being a writing wizard or bookworm,” Sondel says.

“The whole process was a great learning experience,” says teen author Carrie’s mom, Julia, who cites the value as “revising and submitting her writing for critiques from a published author and peers, critiquing others’ work, and volunteering for light administrative workshop jobs that increased her sense of responsibility.”

And Carrie has one more bit of positive criticism to offer: “I loved the bonfire and s’mores!”

—Suki Wessling

« Page 1     Next page »