Writing powerful young adult and middle grade fiction is an art and a calling. Conveying authentic tween and teen experiences can feel overwhelming, but it's also a lot of fun! Whether you have a full manuscript or the nugget of an idea, join other like-minded writers at this intensive one-day workshop, where we’ll learn craft techniques to make your story sing. First, we’ll look at the powerful first pages of several MG/YA novels in order to strengthen our own. Then, we’ll review and try out different plotting strategies, discuss the importance of voice, and dive into exercises designed to create riveting, believable characters. At the end of the day, you’ll leave with a new community of writers, a stronger, more developed story, and tools that you’ll be able to apply to any piece of fiction writing.
Writing for Tweens and Teens:
A Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel Craft Intensive
Date: Saturday, February 4 or Sunday, March 5
Time: 9 am-1 pm
Instructors: Alexandra Ballard and Rachel Sarah
Ages: Adult
Genre: Young Adult/Middle Grade Fiction
Price: $150
Alexandra Ballard signed a two-book deal in 2015 with Farrar, Straus and Giroux for two contemporary young adult novels. Her first novel, What I Lost, a searing yet ultimately uplifting story about a teenage girl's recovery from anorexia, will be published in 2017. A former middle school English teacher, Alexandra has taught at Bentley School in Oakland and at public schools in the Bronx and Manhattan. Alexandra holds an M.S.J. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an M.S.T. in adolescent English education from Fordham University.
Alexandra is represented by Kent Wolf at The Friedrich Agency and can be found on Twitter.
Rachel Sarah is the author of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World (Seal Press), which was optioned by 20th Century Fox for a TV series. Rachel writes often about parenting a tween/teen, most recently in The Washington Post and The New York Times. Her essays have also appeared in Family Circle, Parents, and Brain, Child. Rachel has been a developmental editor for the past decade, in both fiction and nonfiction, and she’s completing her middle grade novel, Rules for Running Away.
Rachel is represented by Eric Myers at Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency and can be found on Twitter.