Hello ESPers...and especially poets!  I found this really interesting explanation of what makes a poem a poem?

 

Here it is.

 

Enjoy!  I can see this counting as part of your Book on Craft Requirement...

Check out this amazing international magazine for high school students.  There is a contest with an upcoming deadline that many of you should enter.

Check out a wonderful conference right here on Long Island at Adelphia University from July 21 - July 25.  Deadline is approaching.  Opportunities for FULL scholarships.  Info here.

This is really cool.  Check it out.  Registration is happening NOW!

This is a magazine, like our school's OPUS, that is run by teens and filled with poetry and fiction by teens.  It is SUPER cool and real and risky and academic in the best sense of the word.  Check it out here.

Details here.  Deadline is in March!

This is a great opportunity to work with professional writers and talented peers for a weekend getaway at a college in Vermont!  Details are here.  Deadline is February 15th.

Deadline is September 27th!  Details here.

The window is open.  Deadlines vary.  Submit here.

Go here for details!  Great for students with video-making skills.  Due date is December 2nd, 2013.

Finally.  A literary journal devoted to YA short fiction.  One Story has come out with a "teen" version called One Teen Story, and I'm really excited.  Check this out.  And you can submit your own short stories about and/or for teens too. 

This one is at Kenyon College.  See details here.

This is a great article on the great sci-fi(ish) satirist and gem of a fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut's thoughts on writing.  The site has a lot of other useful tools too.  Check it out!

Bard College (at Simon's Rock) offers an exciting three-week summer writing program called the Young Writers Workshop.  The program details are here. Applications are accepted from January onwards through April, but the site says to apply early as spots do fill up.  This is a great opportunity, and I'll certainly write you the teacher recommendation that you need.

Writer Jeffrey Eugenides gives advice to young writers in a recent issue of The New Yorker.  I think many of you will respond to this essay's whimsical gtone yet profound thinking.  It's a great model for essay writing as well.  Here it is.

 

The Japan Center at Stonybrook University has set up an essay writing contest.  Details can be found here.  Deadline is January 2013.

This is a fantastic opportunity for Herricks writers.  Check out the website here.  The general deadline for written pieces is in January, but there's a special contest co-sponsored by New York Life that some of you may also be interested in.  The theme for that one is grief and bereavement, and the deadline is in December (the 15th, I think).  Please review guidelines.  You'll need to register yourself before submitting, and there's a bit to read and look over, but the awards are totally legitimate and worthwhile.

Related Files

• Guidelines for 2012-2013 PTA Reflections Contest
• Flier for 2012-2013 PTA Reflections Contest

Here are a few ways to satisfy the Authentic Audience requirement while having some fund and possibly getting your work out to new audiences.

I believe the ESP 2011 grads created this Facebook group.  Perhaps you'd like to join and continue the tradition?  It would be wonderful if it became a useful place for some of you to connect.

The ESP 2011 grads posted work here.

Compliments of Mr. Imondi, we have a pretty solid list of places that seem to publish young authors.  Make sure to read through the guidelines on these sites and peruse the work that is available online or, if you're ambitious, in print form.  It's great to know the kind of writing that a magazine/journal publishes before we send our submissions to it.  It helps us join the conversation...

 

Happy perusing.  Newpages (for young adults) can be found here.

 

T.E.D. can be, simply put, awesome.  At this organization's annual conference, one can hear lectures and presentations by all sorts of folks ranging from Steve Jobs (on how to live life) to Natalie Merchant (performing music based on poetry) and lots of people in between.  There's everything from science to history to painting to cloning to...you name name it.  And all of the footage is posted on their site for easy access.  Go here.  Search something of interest.  Sit back.  Be engaged.  Enjoy.

Mr. Baier just told me about a feature on Radiolab, an interesting program on National Public Radio and its affiliates.  Here is the link.  It discusses how love is a prerequisite for genius.  Interested?  Check it out.

Interactive Poetry brought to you by The Kenyon Review can be found here.  This is a super new genre of sorts where one can read a series of interconnected poems and actually choose words to complete lines within individual poems.  Depending on your word choices, you get "taken" to new poems within the series...thereby "choosing your own adventure," if you will.  The Kenyon Review is the magazine that sponsors The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers (sophomores and juniors only).  Pretty cool stuff.  You can order a copy (of the interactive poetry) from the site as well.