Guest Blog: Teen Writing Conference Goes Virtual

You shouldn’t judge a book by the age of its author. After all, one of the most well-known pieces of literature was written by a 13-year-old girl barely out of grammar school. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl has been published in nearly seventy languages and has sold tens of millions of copies.

I’ve been writing for twenty years. Longer than that if you count my 7th grade research paper on the Lochness monster—which you really should because it was an EXCELLENT report. Regardless, when I see at what level some teens write, I feel intimidated. Teenagers are phenomenal writers. Their creativity and drive is amazing.

This has become even more obvious to me ever since I became involved with the Teen Author Boot Camp, one of the largest teen writing conferences nationwide. For the last three years, this Utah-based conference gathers some of the smartest teenagers and most talented published authors together. This year will be even better because the conference is going virtual.

The Live Broadcast of Teen Author Boot Camp will allow teens all over the world as well as teachers, librarians, and writers of any age to attend the conference. The cost for the TABC Live Broadcast is less than $5 for the entire day.

The keynote address by Newbery Winning Author Shannon Hale will be free for anyone to watch. It will be on March, 16th, 2013 at 9 a.m. MST. A subscription to the Live Broadcast costs $4.99 and includes the following:

9 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.—Writers Cubed: Welcome

9:15 a.m. to 9:55 a.m.—Keynote by Newbery Award winner Shannon Hale (Princess Academy)

10 a.m to 10:45 a.m.—Tyler Whitesides (Janitors) Class: Imagine and Create.

10:55 a.m. to 11:40 a.m.—Janette Rallison (My Fair Godmother) Class: Bad dialogue can kill a story.

12:50 a.m. to 1:35 p.m.—NYT bestseller Kiersten White (Paranormalcy) Class: Plot Like a Villain.

1:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.—J. Scott Savage (Farworld) Class: Finding Your Voice.

2:50 p.m. to 3:25 p.m.—Journey to Publication Panel: Agent Amy Jameson & authors Chad Morris, Tess Hilmo, J. Scott Savage, Cindy Bennett

3:35 p.m. to 4:20 p.m.—NYT bestseller Aprilynne Pike (Wings) Class: World-building is the invisible foundation to your book.

 4:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.—Writers Cubed: Winner of the First Chapter Contest and closing remarks.

If you just can’t get enough of TABC, there is also an All Pass Subscription to the rest of the conference (including more than fifteen awesome presentations, including mine--haha). That only costs $9.99 and, as if it wasn’t a sweet enough deal already, you can watch the whole conference whenever you want for an entire year.

To register to watch Shannon Hale’s Keynote for free, visit www.teenauthorbootcamp.com and click on Livestream. It only takes a minute. While you’re there, check out the other presenters who will be teaching at the conference under the tab "Drill Sergeants."

Stay tuned for details on how to win a subscription to the TABC Live Broadcast for FREE on this blog.

Lois D. Brown is a co-founder of Writers Cubed, a group of Utah writing activists who created the Teen Author Boot Camp in 2010. She is also the author of CYCLES, a top five finalist of The Kindle Book Review 2012. Please visit her website at www.writerscubed.com.

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I have one subscription to the TABC Live Broadcast (ARV $4.99) to give away.  If the winner would prefer the All-Pass subscription, they will receive a $5 coupon instead. Contest is open internationally to anyone 13 years of age or older.

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