Write Out Loud

Elizabeth Davis
YA program Hesston Public Library

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Contents
Description of Program ................................................................................................................................ 3 Resources needed ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Publicity for program ................................................................................................................................... 5 Evaluation ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................................. 5

Summary Write Out Loud is a writing promotion for young adult library patrons of the Hesston public library and the surrounding area. Using a mix of patron work time, guest speakers, publishing and patron exhibit of talent the participants will be able to grow their ability and experience with creative writing and reading.

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Description of Program Write Out Loud is a creative reading and writing program designed for the Hesston Kansas Public Library and the surrounding area. The event will be mainly held in the YA room at the Hesston public library with one exception, Clare Vanderpools author visit, which will be held at Hesston Colleges Mary Miller Library. Hesston Kansas is an affluent town north of Wichita Kansas. Hesston is home to a public school system, college, and around 2,000 teens. Write Out Loud is targeted at teens aged 14-19. This program is meant to give the participants a creative outlet, a positive environment after school, and a greater understanding of good stories outside the school day. Program Schedule: 1. 2. 3. 4. Week 1: Ellen Hopkins, Skype interview. Week 2: Clare Vanderpool live interview, bring original short stories. Week 3: Margaret Rabb, director of WSUs creative writing program. Week 4: Self publishing with lulu.com, selfpublishing.com, and blurb.com,Friday: Open Mic Night, After hours event

Write Out Loud has four goals; 1. To provide participants with an overview and tips to creative writing. 2. To give participants an introduction to authors and short story writers. 3. To initiate an author share. 4. To give participants tools to self publish. Write Out Loud will achieve these goals through five weekly meetings, through the month of May 2011. The program will give students a creative outlet for reading and writing by allowing the participants access to experts in the field including authors and professors. Work time and sharing sessions will also enable the participants to pursue and enhance their craft. This program will give participants an introduction to authors and story writers by devoting three of the sessions to giving the participants exposure to authors and experts in the field. Self publishing session will allow students to publish for themselves or family. Open Mic night is the culminating event, where participants are encouraged to share their writing, prose or poetry they had been working on. This program will be held after school in May. The students are able to get to the library or Hesston Colleges Mary Miller Library with relative ease with it being in close proximity to the public high school.

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Each Tuesday the participants will be encouraged to bring their own writing. The sessions will start out with 20 minutes or so of time which can be used for writing on an existing work or catching up with friends. The author shares and guest speakers will last around 1 hour, with in that time, time for questions will be given. The face to face guests will be asked to stick around to talk to the participants and hear their thoughts and stories. The final session will be publishing their finished work. All participants have the opportunity to register to self publish using one of the sites shown by the librarian, and publish their work. The following Friday night participants and others will be asked to come and shared their writing with others at an Open Mic Night, after hours event. Resources needed Materials required: Short stories Professor Margaret Rabb, creative writing Paper pencils, laptops for young authors to write on. Projector and screen for presenter Stool, authors chair for Open Mic night Computers to help set writer up on self publishing sites; lulu, etc. YA staffer and guest speaker
Cost $5.00 $25 $10 $10.00 already owned already owned already owned $60 100.00 $500.00 $200.00 $910.00

Materials List

Short stories, copies of Professor Margaret Rabb, creative writing

$25 plus Travel cost

Paper & pencils Projector and screen for presenter Stool, authors chair for open mic night Computers for self publishing sites; lulu, etc. YA staffer
8.50/hour Food for Open Mic night and Author visit Clare Vanderpool Ellen Hopkins, Skype

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While the cost of this program is relatively high the cost of author visits is being shared by the Hesston College Library. Publicity for program The publicity for this event will be both virtual and print. Flyers will be posted at the entrances to the library and sent out the Hesston Public middle and high school as well as surrounding private and home schools. Hesston College will be participating in the event as well and flyer will be sent to their library and campus to publicize as well. The flyer will also be scaled down to do some mailing to YA library patrons. Facebook will also be used to publicize. The Hesston YA library Facebook page will have the flier posted on their site and Hesston staff will be able to invite friends to attend this event. The Facebook page will also be used to steer the participants to the sites of the guest speakers. Because of the authors that are visiting and Skyping, we hope the dual medias will be enough to get the YA patrons into the library.

Evaluation Written evaluation tool at the end of each session followed with one electronic, Survey Monkey will be used to assess the appeal and success of the program. Questions such as; Did you feel satisfied with the experience at Write Out Loud? Could you go out and work independently on writing short stories? Which events did you participate in? Did you check out any visiting authors novels or material related to writing? Did you bring writing to any of the events?

will be asked to gage appeal and the number of responses along with a daily tally of participants will assess participation. For the full survey go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/jsPop.apex Works Cited Bolan, K (2000) Comics,Comics,and More Comics. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/yalsamemonly/yalsamounder/yalsamotopics/yacomicbo okprogram.cfm