In my 1999 young adult science fiction novel Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, I postulated a future in which the hit-making machinery of the music industry has become a science, where computers are able to determine what songs, and what singers, are sure to be the next big thing. In the book, a kid names …
Tag: teenagers
High-school writers’ magazine I edited now online
windScript, the magazine of writing by Saskatchewan high school writers that I edited for the Saskatchewan Writers Guild this year, is now online in PDF format. Check out the whole thing, but here’s what I wrote as the introduction: Writing is an act of courage. It takes courage to try to turn your thoughts and …
My favorite email of the year…
…came from a teacher in a school I visited not too long ago. The book of mine in question is Marseguro: Your books have become the absolute fascination of a young boy in Grade 10 who is self-proclaimed to be a non-reader! (He) exclaims about his novel, your novel, every day in English class. He …
Hope for the future
One more post about my time as writer-in-residence at Michael A. Riffel High School. I was thrilled, after I gave my usual presentation in an advanced placement English class, to be asked by a student, “So, which of the Big Three is your favorite?” And, yes, he meant Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke, all of which …
Advice for young writers
I bid farewell to the hallowed halls of Michael A. Riffel High School yesterday as I wrapped up my writer-in-residency there with some final meetings with individual students. As I work with young writers more and more, I find that my writing advice, as far as technique goes, keeps boiling down to the same few …
Yes, I’m still alive…
…I just haven’t been blogging. Busy, busy busy busy, is why. And what have I primarily been busy with? Well, I’m currently the writer-in-residence at Michael A. Riffel High School here in Regina. This is a program sponsored by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, and it’s been an interesting experience. I’ve primarily been doing classroom presentations–more …
The aforementioned chapbook
Further to yesterday’s post about the workshop and reading that wrapped up the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild’s Online Youth Mentorship program last night, here’s what the chapbook looked like (well, here’s what one chapbook looked like, one of the ones I assembled: every one was a bit different, depending on who made it). The image on …
We came, we saw, we chapbooked
Today was the final day of the 2008 Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild‘s Online Youth Mentorship Program, and a fine day it was. The twelve teens who have been taking part in the program and the four mentors (of whom I was one) met this morning at St. James’s Anglican Church in Saskatoon and, with the guidance …
Photo of Last Week: The Sage Hill Teen Writing Experience
Courtesy of Taylor Bendig, here’s a photo of the group of terrific students I worked with last week at the Sage Hill Teen Writing Experience: Back row, left to right: Kiera Mitchell, Christine Howell, me, Stuart Beatch, Sandi Pitura. Front row, left to right: Kimberley Christianson, Melissa Tholl, Emily Garland, Krista Kaufman, Taylor Bendig, Mackenzie …
Justine Larbalestier on beginning writers
A follow-up to John Scalzi’s comments on teen writers from Justine Larbalestier, who some time ago wrote her own piece called “Too Young to Publish.” She writes: Neither Scalzi nor I have any interest in stopping teenagers from writing. Au contraire. We both wrote then and got a hell of a lot out of it, …
More from John Scalzi on teen writers
Sometime last year John Scalzi wrote a post at Whatever called “10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing”. I agreed with pretty much all of it (although Scalzi’s default writing style is more…well, I don’t think even he would disagree with the description “snarky”…than mine). In fact, I agreed with it so much that …
The angel and the devil on the shoulders of your teen
While I am still some seven years away from having a teenager of my own, I well remember being a teenager, and being occasionally asked by an exasperated parent, “What were you thinking?” To which, as often as not, I replied, “I don’t know.” This was seldom seen as an acceptable answer. Had I but …