about us

There are plenty of ways to keep in touch with us...

The Project's founder is Geoffrey Gevalt, an award-winning writer and editor with 33 years experience in newspapers and magazines. He was, for two years, a juror for the Pulitzer Prize in Beat Reporting. He formerly was managing editor of The Burlington Free Press.

The Project's Publications Coordinator is Susan Reid, a writer and editor.

The Web Coordinator is Doug DeMaio, a longtime YWP mentor and recent graduate of UVM.

The Administrative Coordinator is Kate Stein, a musician who has devoted much of her work career helping nonprofits -- in a variety of capacities.

To contact them:

• Geoff Gevalt, YWP Executive Director, click here or 802-324-9537
• Kate, click here or 802-324-9538
• Susan, click here or 802-324-9539
• Doug, click here or 802-324-9538

To reach us by post:

Young Writers Project Inc.
12 North St., #8
Burlington, VT 05401

And to stay on the cutting edge of what we do...

Follow, Friend, and Like us: Read more »

Submitting writing and art to the YWP newspaper series is as easy as 1, 2, 3. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A CHANGE as of Fall 2012.

YWP is publishing your best writing (and art) in 22 newspapers in VT and NH this year and on Vermont Public Radio. The submissions are due Friday at the end of the day and all work is read and considered. Authors will be notified by email if their piece is chosen.

(NOTE: If you are a teacher submitting on behalf of a student, you may get an email implying that you have been chosen; not to worry, go to the link supplied and that author's name will be the one that is published, not yours!)

The prompts: youngwritersproject.org/Prompts12-13

The directions:

1. Create a Blog Entry

Log into youngwritersproject.org Read more »

YWP publishes great work by youth in Vermont and part of New
Hampshire every place that it can:

ONLINE: Join this site! Share, comment, revise. One rule: Respect each other. We have 2,500 teen (and almost-teen) users; site receives 1,200 visits a day. College mentors, professional writers also provide feedback. Register (We check all applicants; it may take a day for activation. Sorry.) Under 13? Parental Permission Form (Register, fill out form, send it in. Sorry, gotta have it.)

• cowbird.com Stories posted here for the Teen Saga (must have large photo attached!) may be posted on cowbird.com and be considered for selection on National Public Radio. Add a podcast (audio narration) to your story!

NEWSPAPER SERIES: YWP publishes work in 22 newspapers (mostly weekly) in VT and NH. Nearly 200,000 readers if you make them all! Directions.    Prompts. We publish 1,000 youths a year! Take a chance; submit your best work! Read more »

YWP Community,

Well, it's time for my semi-regular, semi-rant on commenting while, at the same time, I eat a small amount of crow for not doing more commenting myself.

This community is based entirely on feedback -- the more you get the better you feel and the better you can revise and improve your pieces; the more feedback you give, the more you help others and the more clearly you can see flaws and opportunities in your own writing.

So, this is NOT school. So we're not assessing you or making you do anything you don't want to do. This is supposed to be fun. But this is a place where you can actually learn a lot, particularly if your peers -- and our College Mentors -- are really focusing on what they are doing and following a few simple suggestions:

1. Don't assess. You don't need to say whether it's good or bad, just tell the author what your experience was as a reader.
2. Help the author. Offer ideas as to what engaged you and what you wondered about, as in what parts might have been confusing or tangential or needing development.
3. Triggers. If you get the urge, tell the author what their piece triggered in your own imagination OR what they might do with their material to expand it, extend it or take it in new directions.
4. Feedback not chat. Please use the messaging system if you want to chat with someone -- NOT to say that you can't have exchanges on a piece -- but try, as best you can, to keep on the topic of the writing and try, as best you can, to follow conventional writing form -- full sentences, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, etc.
5. Courtesy of time. You KNOW you love to get feedback. And when that feedback is thoughtful, helpful and insightful it is absolutely inspiring. Can you make your comments inspiring, helpful and thoughtful?
6. Comment often. If you post a piece, comment on two others. Become a commenting demon. Help your community grow, gain energy and learn from each other.

THANKS! And does anyone have any reaction to this? As in a comment?

gg

So here's a question that we'd like to discuss... What kind of "blogging" is appropriate for this site?

Now I will be the first to say that the word "appropriate" has changed in meaning in recent years, with the advent of movie ratings and the invention of adult-driven restrictions on Internet use. I think of the word appropriate in a much different way -- does it belong? does it fit? is it part of a larger point?

So is "blogging" about ones daily life appropriate for this site?

Absolutely, I say. In fact, I know there has been a pattern of some of the older users and more experienced users of this site of going to WordPress or Blogger to create personal blogs to which they invite friends to read and comment upon. I think it's happening for these reasons:

• those programs allow for more personalization and design of individual blogs
• some users have gained identity on this site and seek a more anonymous venue so they can get more response based on their words rather than their identities
• there are more personal things that can be discussed in those places
• the audience can be limited to just friends
• they think it is not "appropriate" to write about daily lives on youngwritersproject.org

(If there are more reasons, please share them) But point by point responses: Read more »

PHILOSOPHY. We believe all writing and communication on this Web site -- including comments, blogs, forums and submissions for outside publication -- should be civil, accurate and respectful of others. All work should be the author's original work unless noted.

COPYRIGHTS. In order to publish student work in as many venues as possible, YWP retains the copyright to all work submitted or written on the Web site. HOWEVER, all authors and artists retain all commercial rights to the work forever and therefore has the right to sell the work whenever and wherever and to anyone and is not obligated to compensate YWP for such republishing. For more, click here.

TO SUBMIT WRITING. You must be a registered user to submit via this site. Click 'Register' in the upper right and complete all info. Your account will NOT be immediately activated; we verify information and will activate within a day. Once signed  in click 'WRITE' in the upper left corner, write or paste in story, choose genre and say 'YES' to it being a submission at the bottom and complete additional boxes. SAVE. You are all set. We will let you know by email ONLY if your pice is chosen. Read more »