WRITE2IGNITE PRESENTS: A Young Adult Master Class with Tessa Emily Hall

For those of you who have followed my blog for several years, you know that Write2Ignite is dear to my heart. I've served on their planning team for several years and administer their blog (no surprise there, right?). Our mission is to encourage and teach Christian writers who want to share their faith through literature. Whether that's through explicitly Christian books or books that reflect Biblical values, our commitment is strong: to present quality, clean, books for children and young adults that will inspire, educate, and entertain. 

Since COVID, we exchanged our annual conferences for semi-annual virtual master classes. This year, our class is on September 18 and will be taught by writer and editor, Tessa Hall.

For only $69.00, writers will spend the day learning from Tessa and practicing the principles Tessa has presented. Here's the schedule:

In addition, during lunch I will interview Tiffany Slack, head librarian at Matthews Christian Library. She will tell us about the books she'd like to add to her collection. 

If you are a Christian who longs to write books which impact teens, please join us! Registration information can be found here. 

By the way, our blog has provided excellent young adult resources this summer. Here are some posts that might interest you:

Recommended YA Books and Series

Perceive the Trends in the Young Adult Market 

Purple Moon by Tessa Hall: Book Review 

Should Writers be Hopeful about the State of YA Christian Fiction? 

Writing Christian Fiction in Young Adult Literature

Writing Clean YA Fantasy

I hope you can join us for a day that will inform and encourage you!

And just in case you have a manuscript that you would like critiqued, here is a special offer for you:

And here are two short movies in which I interviewed teens in my church to find out what they liked and didn't like in YA literature.

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Congratulations to California book blogger Rosi Hollinbeck who won A CAPE! and to Cathy Ogren who won DON'T CALL ME FUZZYBUTT. I still have stacks of books to share with you--so more coming soon!

Write2Ignite 2019 Wrap-Up

Congratulations to Susan Rice who won Invisible Lizard in Love and Connie Saunders who won Back Roads, Country Toads from last week's blog.

The 2019 Write2Ignite conference is now history. Here are my highlights as well as photos and quotes from my friends who were first time attendees.  

MY HIGHLIGHTS

Besides being the Write2Ignite blogmeister, I am also the teen track co-ordinator. In other words, I get to spend time talking with teens about their stories and hearing their imaginative ideas for stories. I led three sessions and the most interactive one was "Out of this World Science Fiction and Fantasy." I put up this slide and led a discussion about the physical world, it's history, and some potential characters.

I loved hearing the teens' responses which included that this was a world where anarchists had taken over and didn't allow the citizens  to know the history of their queen. 

Time travel was thrown in as well as a prince who thought the anarchists were the bad guys, but as it turned out, they were preventing the citizens from an even worse catastrophe. And by the way...the arms were escaping from the gritty ground. I loved their use of Muscle Words!

I was also inspired by Nancy Lohr's keynote on "Truth-FULL Writing." Her encouragement that if we are Christians our world view will be communicated in our writing will stick with me. 

• "Draw from your own faith well." 
• "Don't try to write like someone else." 
• "What is your readers's felt need? Write to meet that need."
• As in life, "You can't enjoy a good ending if you skip through all the hard parts."
• "Write as salt and light."

MY FRIENDS' HIGHLIGHTS

I had the privilege of critiquing Jarm Del Boccio's WIP, SOLI'S SAVING GRACE. Having received many critiques myself, I enjoyed coming alongside her and pointing out some aspects of her manuscript that were terrific and some areas that needed strengthening. Like many writers, she was too easy on her characters; I encouraged her to make her antagonist more of a bad guy which would bring more conflict into the story.

Here she is with her debut middle grade novel, The Heart Changer.

”Write2Ignite was a boost to my writing journey in many ways. The sessions were informative, and appointments enlightening and productive. What an encouragement to chat with those walking alongside me on the road to publication! Even though our journeys are unique, they lead to the same destination: a manuscript that brings glory to God.” Jarm Del Boccio 

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Several young adults who I haven't seen in a year, attended Write2Ignite for the first time.

Charissa Garcia (our NGU intern)
and
Olivia Rollins (a fantastic teen writer!)

Charissa said,  "All of the sessions were excellent, especially the key-note sessions, and I appreciated the emphasis on the fact that because we are Christians and because we are writers, therefore we are Christian writers. There isn’t something you need to add to have the magic formula in order to make your book a “Christian” book. If you have faith in Christ, that will come out in your writing." 

Olivia said,  "I loved Write2Ignite!! I learned so much in just two days. Each of the speakers was engaging and God-centered, and I loved the variety and being able to choose which one sounded the best. A few lectures in particular made me reevaluate aspects of my own writing in a way I hadn't before. Whether you're a young aspiring author, or experienced and published, the dynamic of being immersed in other writers and getting to meet them is so enriching. Overall, I think what made the longest-lasting impression on me was how encouraged I felt, to keep writing, and to glorify the Lord in my writing. And definitely to come back next year. " 😀

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Recently Karen Wallace and I have become friends bonding over shared life experiences, writing, and our commitment to the Lord. She showed me her guided journal, ABC's of What Children Need From Their Parents and asked me to help edit the introduction. Each attendee received a copy which was a great addition to our conference bags!

Karen said, "In Linda Phillips' and Daniel Blackaby's workshops, word and picture prompts were effectively used to draw out creative writing from each attendee. This got me excited for what might be be drawn out of each person who interacts with the word prompts in the ABCs journal."

I was glad that my friends, Hadassah and Kelilah Murdock, came.

Tessa Emily Hall, Kelilah Murdock, Hadassah Murdock

"Writing is not my forte. Yet as I went to the sessions and spoke with some of the accomplished authors and felt my interest being kindled; I was inspired to give higher priority to learning more about the art of writing.  After a long summer of complacency, I feel motivated to dive back into my school writing projects and sharpen my skills. I am already planning to go again next year and highly recommend this workshop to anyone who has or who needs to cultivate an interest in all things paper." Hadassah Murdock

"Here are some of the many things that I enjoyed about W2I:

• The presenters and speakers showed a genuine interest in the attendees, answering questions and taking time to talk personally about writing and story crafting with us.
• There was a broad range of speakers (authors of many genres, editors and agents) and themes.  From the nuts and bolts of word crafting to the imaginative scope of world building, there was something useful and interesting for everyone, regardless of ability or level of involvement." Kelilah Murdock 

Unable to attend this year? Mark your calendar for 2020!