Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Microcosms 107 – at last. Abject apologies for last week’s no-show. We hope it hasn’t put you off and that you will be energised and raring to take on the challenge.
In this round, Steph Ellis has valiantly responded to my last-minute plea for help, and acts as guest host. Take it away, Steph…
This week I have had a wonderful time opening boxes and boxes of books. At the start of this term, I moved out of classroom support and back into the school library.
When I first started working in secondary school, it was as an assistant librarian and then I became a Teaching Assistant. Now, at my current school, I have returned to the library but not just as the librarian: my focus is also on improving student’s literacy. Because our old librarian had been off for some time it meant a lot of the budget hadn’t been spent – but I changed all that!
This brings me to the subject of this week’s post, the world of children’s books and Young Adult (YA) fiction. What were your favourites as a child, what grabbed you as a teen? Today a student asked for something humorous that was a bit more adult than ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ and I gave him ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, one of my precious new books.
I remember reading this when I was 12, and it was the first book that ever made me laugh out loud, the actual phrase which prompted this outburst being a bizarre title for a poem – ‘Ode To A Lump of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit’. I loved Slartibartfarst too and the squiggly bits of the fjords.
YA Fiction is something I am looking forward to returning to. I read and recommended ‘The Hunger Games’ trilogy before it became a film, promoted ‘The Morganville Vampires’, enjoyed ‘The Maze Runner’ and found the world of writing for teenagers was alive and well.
So for this week’s contest, I invite you into the world of YA Fiction.
For those unsure about the Dark Fantasy genre, it tends to be about glittery vampires, fallen angels or the non-decomposing dead.
The characters are all different ‘types’ of teen you might find in the pages of a YA book.
Steph
(If YOU have an idea for a future contest and would like to be guest host, please contact us.)
Our contest this week begins with THREE things: character, location and genre.
We spun, and our three elements are – character: Arrogant Teen, Location: Rock Concert, and genre: Dark Fantasy.
Write a story using those OR feel free to click on the “Spin!” button, and the slot machine will come up with a new set – character, location and genre. You can keep clicking until you have a set of elements that inspires you.
*** HEY! Remember to include which THREE elements you’re using (if you select [Your Choice], please specify exactly what your choice is) AND a title for your entry – not included in the word count.
*** NO FAN-FICTION, PLEASE, and NO USE of COPYRIGHT CHARACTERS ***
- Isolated Teen
- Homeless Teen
- Arrogant Teen
- Young Carer
- Addict
- Young Offender
- Shopping Mall
- Rock Concert
- Cinema
- Derelict Warehouse
- Ball
- Barren Wasteland
- Dark Fantasy
- Romance
- Humour
- Horror
- Crime
- Sci-Fi
Judge’s Pick in MC 106, Vicente L Ruiz, has kindly agreed to act as judge this time round.
Let me reiterate: all submissions should be a maximum of 300 words in length. You have 24 hours until midnight, today (Friday) New York time (EST) to submit.
*** If you are new to Microcosms, remember to check out the full submission guidelines. ***
All being well, results will be posted next Monday.
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