Here at Fiction Writers Review, many of our contributors are emerging writers, so we love sites that encourage those early in their writing careers. Recently I heard of a few sites that encourage those really early in their writing careers: kids and young adults.
On The Huffington Post, Monica Edinger, a teacher at New York’s prestigious Dalton School, writes about an afterschool book blogging club she and several other instructors founded:
Every week these literary enthusiasts come to my room; sift through my books and advance reader copies; choose to read whatever catches their fancy; and, after reading them, write blog reviews about them.
It’s never too early to encourage reading and reviewing, right?
Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that Penguin is launching Spinebreakers, a social network for teens to talk about books. The Spinebreakers site previously existed as a space for teens to write about books, but over the next six months, the site will be redesigned as “the first social network dedicated to books”. Why? Penguin sees it as an investment in the fiture of publishing:
[Anna Rafferty, managing director of Penguin Digital], said that the site, which attracts 10 to 15,000 unique users each month and is still in beta, was not a commercial venture for Penguin, but was hugely important to the company for “future-proofing the book industry”.
What a great way to think of encouraging young readers, writers, and critics: growing a new generation of book appreciators.
