Day 7 of Youth Authors Week: "Tell the story that is aching inside of you."
Thanks for joining us - here's our last pick for you, representing the future!
Thank you for joining us for our first Youth Authors Week campaign! Our last pick for the week is Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, representing where we believe the future of youth writing and youth publishing is headed. Mottley, who is from the Bay Area where we are based, started writing Nightcrawling when she was sixteen based on a real case of police sexual violence and corruption in her hometown of Oakland. She's served as the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and is the youngest author to have her work selected for Oprah's Book Club and longlisted for the Booker Prize.
"We write the stories we are most adept at telling at the time they are ready to come out of us. I think that can happen at any age and I also think there are books we’re not prepared to write at 50 or 15 or 80, for a multitude of reasons that often have more to do with us as people than as writers. Age and life experience absolutely matter, but less as a constraint than as a factor in where the writer is in life and what kind of stories we’re compelled to tell. There’s never a wrong age to tell the story that is aching inside of you."
- Leila Mottley on writing and publishing “Nightcrawling” at a young age
Writing or Reflection Prompt: What is “the story that is aching inside of you”? Do you worry that you’re too young or too old to tell it? And if so, why?
That’s a wrap on Youth Authors Week!
The week may be over, but we hope you’ll keep exploring youth writing. As for us, we’ll keep supporting young writers all throughout the year, so that more books like Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley can come into being and so that young writers can “tell the story that is aching inside of them,” no matter what age they are.
If you’re a young writer or you know a young writer in your life, consider applying or sharing the application to our publishing program, the Rising Voices Collective. If you like what we’re doing, consider donating to support our work. Thanks for being here!