If you’re an aspiring author of children’s or YA books and you live in New South Wales, you might like to check out the Children’s Book Council’s Frustrated Writers’ Mentoring Program, which awards mentorships with a professional editor or published author. There are separate categories for writers who are Juniors (under 15 years), Young Adults (15-20 years old) and Seniors (anyone over 20 years), with entries closing on the 1st of June. Some of the successful Australian authors who’ve entered the program include J.C. Burke, Jacqueline Harvey, Kirsty Eagar, Oliver Phommavanh, Aleesah Darlison, Nathan Luff, Jenny Blackman and er, me. I won a CBCA mentorship in 2003 with Alyssa Brugman, and not only did Alyssa give me a lot of useful advice for improving my manuscript, she also helped me find a publisher and an agent for my first novel. So I think this program is pretty good.
The CBCA and the State Library of NSW are also getting together this year to offer four days of creative writing workshops for teenage writers, led by Anthony Eaton, Michael Pryor, Ursula Dubosarsky, Tony Thompson and the Bell Shakespeare Company. The first Master Class is on the 29th of March and you can find all the details here.
Is there anything for young wanna be authors in the states??
Check out this page on my website, and try Teen Ink – it has lots of resources for teenage writers in the United States.