by Swati Avasthi

Voice is the circulatory system of a YA novel:  it streams from one vital organ to the next, gives us the novel’s pulse, and brings oxygen and life to otherwise sluggish words. Without voice, the energy is drained; with it, anything is possible.

One Writer’s Experience

by Donna Karis

With trembling voice and book in hand, I read my first published essay to the audience. The story told of my disabled son’s desire to be a school patrol guard. Just as I reached the passage when he held the coveted patrol badge in his hand, a wave of emotion hit me and tears soaked my cheeks. I continued through the last few pages with difficulty.

by Kate St. Vincent Vogl

In my former life I was a corporate attorney, slaving on the 83rd floor of the Sears Tower for a century-old international firm. None of the kids in the Sunday school I taught back then believed what I did, and I’m not sure they’d believe what I do now, either. Somehow I’ve moved into another profession where no one dares admit being one, but not because of the bad jokes. It’s because as writers—as new writers especially—we worry no one will believe us, least of all ourselves.

Raising Writers

By Steve Ford and Bev Bachel

image from In Our Write Minds website

Do you have a young writer in your house? Someone who hides away with notepad and pencil for hours on end? Does she emit a growl when you peek over her shoulder? Has he taken to wearing black and hanging out at the local coffee shop or asking to convert the attic into a studio?

If so, congratulations; you’re raising a writer, a quirky being who, if properly nourished, may grow up to pen poems, short stories, a memoir, or the great American novel.

As a parent, your job is to keep your budding scribe’s creative flame burning brightly. As professional writers who work with youth (Steve’s a former middle school writing teacher; Bev’s the author of a goal-setting book for teens), here are our tried-and-true strategies.

By Rebecca Weaver

The Loft Needs Your Archival Material

One April night in 1975, in a renovated fire station used as a performance space near the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis, the poet Jim Moore jumped up. His bushy hair waved with the motion, and he gleefully recited his poem “At 7 a.m., Watching the Cars on the Bridge” to the raucous applause of about 40 people seated in a circle on the floor around him. The event was “A Sampler of Minnesota Poets,” a fund-raiser for the newly created Loft. Other poets, including Phebe Hanson, Michael Dennis Browne, and Robert Bly, took turns rising from the floor and reading or reciting poems that engaged the theme of “sudden changes.”