Announcement! FREE online YA Writing Workshop!

Hey guys!

Susan and Sarah here!

In case you missed the announcement on our blogs, we just wanted to write a quick post to let you know that we’re hosting a FREE online YA writing workshop from July 5^th-10th! You can check out the official announcements on either Susan or Sarah’s blogs!

Applications open TODAY (Monday, June 27th) at 5 PM EDT (2PM Pacific Time), and we will be providing links on our blogs to fill out the application form! We are only taking SIX students, so applications are done on a first come, first serve basis!

Here’s some more information about the workshop:

Writing For Young Adults Workshop

taught by Susan Dennard and Sarah J. Maas

with a special focus on Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Paranormal YA

Cost

Nada. It’s 100% FREE. Yeah, you read that right.

Dates

Monday, June 27th — Submissions for applications will open 5 PM Eastern Time (2 PM Pacific Time). It is FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE.
Tuesday, June 28th — Accepted students will receive notification via email
July 5th – July 15th — Workshop runs
July 18th — Final Assignment Due

General Information

The workshop will be conducted via Google Groups (in a forum style), so all Q&A will take place there as well as homework submissions. There will be “homework” assigned (it is, of course, optional), and additionally, you will be applying each lesson to your first 10 pages as the workshop progresses.

The first 10 pages of your novel will be due on the Monday following the workshop (July 18th).

There will be two Live Chats to discuss everything we’ve learned. The first will be Sunday, July 10th, and the second will be Friday, July 15th.

We will post lectures at midnight Eastern Time, and a day of discussion will be allowed until midnight Pacific Time the following night. In other words, each lesson (excluding the Introduction) will be allotted 2 full days of focus.

If you are an accepted student, you’ll receive a detailed syllabus upon acceptance.

Requirements

You MUST have at least 50 pages written of a manuscript, and your manuscript MUST BE YA. Though your novel may fall into any genre, keep in mind we will be emphasizing fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal genres because these are what we write.

We ask that you be familiar and comfortable with Google Groups. Because the workshop is brief, we won’t have time to deal with “technical difficulties.”

As stated, this is FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE. We are really sorry, but if you are not within the first 6 submissions, you will have to wait until the next workshop.

Lecture Topics

Lesson 1: Introduction to Young Adult Fiction (Tuesday, July 5th)

Lesson 2: World-building in YA (Wednesday, July 6th)

Lesson 3: Characters in YA and the Importance of Voice (Friday, July 8th)

Lesson 4: Pacing in Modern YA (Monday, July 11th)

Lesson 5: The Publishing Industry and Career Writing (Wednesday, July 13th)

Applying to the Workshop

On June 27th at 5 PM Eastern Time, a special post will open on our blogs. There will be a link that will take you to a submission form. You will fill out the form and hit send. We will wait until we have 6 suitable applicants, and then we will close submissions. (By suitable, we mean the author has a YA manuscript and has properly filled out the submission form.)

In case you want to prepare your answers ahead of time, the questions will be:

-Name?

-Email?

-Location (so we can coordinate time zones! Example: La Quinta, California, USA)?

-Length and status of your YA manuscript? (example: 30k written, incomplete manuscript; or 90k completed manuscript)

-Brief (a few sentences) summary of your YA novel?

-How/Where did you hear about this workshop?

And that’s it! Pretty easy, right?

~~

If you have any questions, you can email us:

Sarah: SarahJMaas AT (@) gmail DOT (.) com

Susan: Susan AT (@) SusanDennard DOT (.) com

OR you can send an email to our workshop email account: Nautilus DOT (.) Writing AT (@) gmail DOT (.) com!!

We are SO unbelievably excited about the workshop, and think it’ll be an absolutely amazing experience for everyone involved.

Thanks!

~~

Susan Dennard is a writer, reader, lover of animals, and eater of cookies. She is repped by Sara Kendall of NCLit, and her debut, SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY, will be available from Harper Children’s in 2012. You can learn more about her on her blog or twitter.

Sarah J. Maas is the author of several novels, including QUEEN OF GLASS, a YA fantasy retelling of Cinderella that will be published by Bloomsbury in fall 2012. Sarah resides with her husband in Los Angeles. You can visit her blog here.