We will examine such questions as: Does writing for teenagers mean avoiding expressing strong views? As adults struggle to establish objectivity as a value, can an author be both impassioned and fair? Now that the most explicit material is readily available, what should or should not be in a YA book? What is the balance of reaching teenagers and not falling afoul of adult gatekeepers who control school and library budgets? Issues of authenticity and sensitivity are roiling all of publishing, who should write what? As teenagers themselves are becoming politically active, what kind of writing can match their intensities and give them new insights? What makes a book YA anyway? 

Taught by Marc Aronson, who is used to writing under pressure – when 33 miners were caught inside a mine in Chile he wrote Trapped in a matter of months – and garnered 5 starred reviews for his efforts. But writing Rising Water – about the soccer team lost in a cave in Thailand – was a whole new level of challenge. In order to get the full story Aronson worked with a team of Thai, Chinese, and Japanese readers and conducted exclusive interviews with key divers and rescuers. As a result, his readers (and attendees of the Festival) will get to discover stories from the rescue that were never covered in the press. What might seem like a survival tale is really the triumph of internationalism, and a testimony to the importance of undocumented, stateless, refugees everywhere.

Also taught by Candy J. Cooper, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. She has been a staff writer for four newspapers, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Columbia Journalism Review and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. She is currently at work, with Marc Aronson, on a YA book about the Flint water crisis. She is on leave as Director of Education for Succeed2gether.

1.5 hours/Tickets $35. *After you sign up, please indicate if you’re interested in writing fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, realistic fiction, etc. 

All sales are final – there are no refunds.