Yes, it's on! The Ottawa Public Library is holding its annual Awesome Authors Contest for youth aged 9-17. If you're a young person in Ottawa with something to say, get to work on saying it well. (BTW, the 9-year-olds don't have to compete with the high-schoolers. The contest is divided into three age categories: 9-11;… Continue reading Awesome Young Authors in Ottawa
Tag: poetry
Good Reading
I just received my copies of the latest Pot-Pourri -- that's the annual volume of youth writing published by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association (FOPLA). This lovely book contains all the winning poems and stories from last year's Awesome Authors Contest, a youth writing competition held every winter by the Ottawa Public Library.… Continue reading Good Reading
Satan Makes Lemonade
For the eighth time in my life, I’m trying to finish Milton’s Paradise Lost. (So far, I’ve reread Book I, the bit about the fallen angels landing in hell. It’s fun to read aloud when you get to lines like, “Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!”—which does not work on sleeping teenagers, BTW). I… Continue reading Satan Makes Lemonade
Writing Contests with Looming Deadlines
Attention young writers! The Ottawa Public Library’s annual Awesome Authors contest is now accepting poems and stories from Ottawa-area youth aged 9-17. Deadline February 16th. Not in Ottawa? No worries. If you've got your act together RIGHT NOW, you can enter the Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Contest for Canadian Youth in one of two age categories: junior (grades 7-9)… Continue reading Writing Contests with Looming Deadlines
Three Cheers for the Big Yellow Bus
A late August entry in my journal includes this little ditty dedicated to parents of teenagers in summertime: They were laughing, he and she, in their private cafe, before you stepped out of your room grown tall beyond towers of blocks, beyond models, stories, construction paper, beyond anything you built together. They drained their cups and turned their faded faces, remembering… Continue reading Three Cheers for the Big Yellow Bus
Catherine Austen 