I was recently privileged to be a part of the 2021 Young Writers Day Out. The YNZW was started by my writing colleagues Lee Murray and Piper Mejia ten years ago.
It’s a pretty cool event: First of all there are two free-to-enter writing competitions: one for middle grade and the other for high school aged students. Every child receives feedback on their writing. YNZW then produce two corresponding print and digital (intermediate and secondary) anthologies of the most promising work, which is professionally edited and published. The past two years I’ve helped with the judging and/or proofreading of these anthologies.
Then there’s the full-day student workshop. Of course, last year we had to run that online due to Covid, and I prepared a video presentation. So this year was the first year I got to experience the actual event. I presented on the Snowflake Method of plotting. The rest of the day I supported the other presenters in my stream. The day ends with the book launches for the two anthologies.
In addition, YNZW also runs an after-school writing programme, and ongoing student mentorship. Pretty cool, huh?
Like I said, such a privilege to be invited to be a part of this very worthy programme.
