Writers' Night: Writing for Young Adults (SCBWI - Tokyo)

20 May 2011
Writers' Night: Writing for Young Adults (SCBWI - Tokyo)
Date: 11 June 2011

Join us for an evening focused on writing for young adults including discussion, brief readings and Q&A.

What makes a good short story? And why bother writing short fiction for teens? Suzanne Kamata, award-winning author of more than 40 published short stories, will answer these questions and suggest established markets and new frontiers for short fiction aimed at young adults.

What exactly is a verse novel? Why write one? And why do teens read them? Holly Thompson, author of the young adult verse novel Orchards will discuss the many variations of the form, share examples of recently published YA verse novels, and offer insights gained along the road to publication.

Books will not be available for sale at the event. Please feel free to purchase copies in advance through your favorite bookseller and bring them along for signing.

Suzanne Kamata (www.suzannekamata.com) is the author of the novel Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press) and editor of The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan and Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs (Beacon Press). She serves as fiction editor for Literary Mama (literarymama.com), and her short stories for young adults have appeared frequently in Cicada. Some of those stories will appear in her forthcoming collection The Beautiful One Has Come (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing). She is the 2009 recipient of the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for Fiction.

Holly Thompson (www.hatbooks.com) is the author of the YA verse novel Orchards (Delacorte/Random House), the picture book The Wakame Gatherers (Shen’s Books), and the novel Ash (Stone Bridge Press). She serves as Regional Advisor for the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and teaches creative and academic writing at Yokohama City University.

Time:6:30-8:30 p.m.

Place: Tokyo Women’s Plaza, Audiovisual Room, 5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo (by the Children’s Castle and United Nations University). For a map see www.scbwi.jp/map.htm

Fee: SCBWI members 1,000 yen; nonmembers 1,500 yen

RSVP: Please reserve by June 10 by sending an e-mail to info@scbwi.jp

This event will be in English.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: info@scbwi.jp

Website: http://www.scbwi.jp/
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