Topic: Young Writers Board

[cindoh]

I'm confused--are the Young Writers boards no longer accessible to young writers? My daughter has been trying to register, but received an email from an administrator saying she will have to be 19 to join because of legal reasons (I have no idea why it's 19 instead of 18.) Can someone please clarify?
I have a parental consent form filled out that was part of the registration process for her that specifically references any one who is under age 13, so I don't know what's going on.  She was very interested in connecting with other serious young writers and trying to find critique partners.

[Verla Kay]

Because of almost no activity on the YW boards and because of the extremely strict laws concerning minors and the Internet, I am going to be closing/removing the Young Writers area of the message board, cindoh. The confusion is because this change is currently in the planning -- how do we do this? -- stage and no one knows for sure yet how this change will take place.

I've had a very active site recommended (boomwriters.com) for kids and we are in the process of recommending that site to any young writers that contact us through our site.

and to clarify, it's only young people UNDER the age of 18 that will be affected by this change.

[cindoh]

Thanks for clarifying. I'm disappointed but I understand the reasons for it. One note, though--Boomwriters is something quite different (essentially it's story starts with kids then writing their own chapters). I'm a guest author for the site and think it's a great idea, particularly for use in schools and writing clubs. However, it's not a community for young writers or a place where they can find resources or critique partners, so I'm not sure it's really a substitute.
There's a site called Figment that's targeted to younger writers, but I don't know enough about it yet to determine how safe it is. If anyone else knows of safe, supportive places where young writers can come together to learn craft and possibly share their work, please let me know. (New Moon Girls is one, though the girls are often quite young--13 and younger.)

[Verla Kay]

Yes, do please add other resources here as you locate them, people. It would be wonderful if we had several good, safe places to recommend to interested young writers.

[Marissa Doyle]

Doing a little research, I see that Figment has acquired HarperCollins's teen writing site Inkpop, so I imagine it's a serious site.  I don't know anything about the "atmosphere" there, though.