This last Saturday, Sara Kocek and I, (Bethany Hegedus) hit the Austin Teen Book Festival to promote her College Essay Boot Camp class, and our joint Let Loose! A Creative Writing Workshop for Teens, both being held at The Writing Barn. Along with us, we toted fliers, a ton of candy, and some incredible word wranglers, known as the Typewriter Rodeo.
The Austin Teen Book Festival began 4 years ago, which is when I moved to Austin from NYC. I’ve attended each of the festivals and my how they’ve grown. 5000+ attendees were expected at the Austin Convention Center to hear such incredible authors as Holly Black, Rob Thomas of Veronica Mars fame with a re-release of his YA Rats Saw God, Jo Knowles, Jenny Han, Sibobhan Vivian, and Maggie Stiefvater. Kids come by the busload and not just from the Austin area. From all over Texas (and Texas is a mighty big state) From Louisiana. From Oklahoma. It’s an amazing day filled with books, books, and more books.
Over in the Exhibitor Hall, The Writing Barn table, was a-hopping. We were part of a Scavenger Hunt to win an ARC, which brought us many funny visits of teens and writers posing like barnyard animals in front of our booth. We talked to tons of teens, their parents, their teachers, librarians, and more.
The Typewriter Rodeo was a big draw. Spontaneous poetry on typewriters! Kids were enthralled! And they kept coming back for more.
Wrangling the words were David Moses Frutcher, Jodi Edgerton, and Sean Petrie. Each sat behind a vintage typewriter and waited for the kids to throw them a word/topic and then the fingers would fly. Jodi’s list of requests: “…waffles, cats, broken hearts, hedgehogs that love green tea, video games, Dr. Who, purple, spies, Lego, and more…I’m guessing I wrote about 100 poems. So. Much. Fun.”
And Sean’s: “I got to write poems about cats, dogs, penguins, dragons, sad birds, the truth behind lies, an elfin version of Rome o & Juliet, love, true love, love has no gender, endurance, gray cashmere, violins, trombones, Cheetos, coffee, nothing, clocks, and about gazillion more topics, including a poem about poems and a mini-story about unlikely friends. Super-fun time at the Austin Teen Book Festival with Typewriter Rodeo!”
Tomorrow, we will be drawing the winner of the Let Loose! A Creative Writing Workshop for Teens! Stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy these incredible ATBF13 pics and the words of our last poem of the day:
a piece of glass
made of triangles
and rectangles
will break white light
into a thousand million colors.
and I know, my love
when I find you
someday
that’s exactly
what you’ll do to me.
David Moses Fruchter
