This summer the Alliance for the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature (ASTAL) at Rhode Island College is offering a five day institute for people who are interested in learning to write for young people. A follow-up session will be held in December. Participants will choose between a strand for fiction writing or nonfiction writing. A third strand will be available for students in grades 7-12 who are interested in learning to write for their peers.

Participants will attend presentations about book publishing featuring editors and publishers including Kara LaReau, editor for Scholastic Books, R. James Stahl, publisher of the Merlyn’s Pen New Library of Young Adult Writing and head of The Olga! Project: Courage, Creativity, and Identity, and Jennifer Taber, publicist at Houghton Mifflin. They will meet and hear from guest authors including Natalie Babbitt, Patricia Reilly Giff, Janet Taylor Lisle, Patricia McCormick, Sarah Lamstein, and Melissa Stewart. Each participant will also work with an instructor/mentor in one of three strands: Writing Fiction for Young People; Writing Nonfiction for Young People; or Young People Writing for Their Peers (enrollment limited to students in grades 7-12). Instructor/mentors include Tonya Bolden, Kelly Easton, Beatrice Gormley, Joyce Hansen, Mark Peter Hughes, Donna Jackson, Peter Johnson, and Liza Ketchum. In each strand, the instructor/mentor to student ratio will not exceed 1:7 to provide maximum opportunities for individualized instruction and feedback during work sessions. Enrollment will be limited and students will be accepted in the order that we receive the applications by the strand indicated.

We are proud to honor Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle as the inaugural selection for the ASTAL Rhode Island Book of the Year. The award will be announced annually at the ASTAL Spring Authors Luncheon. The award was established to recognize the excellence in the literature for young people that is either set in our state or written by Rhode Islanders.

In Black Duck, 14-year-old David, a budding journalist, befriends Ruben, an elderly neighbor in his coastal Rhode Island town (Little Compton). David is in search of a story and Ruben has a secret in his past. Using chapters that alternate decades, Janet Lisle skillfully weaves a tale, part mystery, part adventure, and part morality play as David teases from Ruben the story of the Black Duck, a rum-running ship and its violent fate. In this riveting examination of Prohibition, Lisle demonstrates once again her ability to enrich and enliven her story with rich historical detail that frames the social and ethical issues of the time.