The Teen Ink Link
I had the pleasure of participating in a Teen Ink Twitter chat last night. Teen Ink is a national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos and forums. Students must be age 13-19 to participate and from what I've seen this is a hot bed of artistry for the YA Crowd. I have so enjoyed the writing and photography of these kids that I ordered my own subscription to the magazine.
I'm not going to lie to you, as an author of YA books, I'm trying to make a connection with this crowd. But my fascination with them goes deeper than that. I like them. To me, teenagers are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. But I'm finding there's a whole lot of caramels in there and not nearly as many orange fluffs as I might have imagined. They surprise me all the time. In a good way. I no longer just want them to read my book; to listen to me. I want a two way conversation. There weren't any visible teens on the chat last night. Perhaps they were there, lurking in the dusty corners. Or not. Either way, they were missed--I had questions for those young adults. There were things I wanted to know. It was a great chat--but it would have been a better one if they were in it. Hope we can talk again soon.
What's the most amazing thing that you've learned from a young adult?
I'm not going to lie to you, as an author of YA books, I'm trying to make a connection with this crowd. But my fascination with them goes deeper than that. I like them. To me, teenagers are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. But I'm finding there's a whole lot of caramels in there and not nearly as many orange fluffs as I might have imagined. They surprise me all the time. In a good way. I no longer just want them to read my book; to listen to me. I want a two way conversation. There weren't any visible teens on the chat last night. Perhaps they were there, lurking in the dusty corners. Or not. Either way, they were missed--I had questions for those young adults. There were things I wanted to know. It was a great chat--but it would have been a better one if they were in it. Hope we can talk again soon.
What's the most amazing thing that you've learned from a young adult?