Celebration of UKYA: Event Planning

You may or may not have seen me on Twitter rambling on about something called the Gold Arts Award. At my college, every A2 student at my college has to take on what they call an "extension course." I chose the Arts Award as a way for which I could explore my creative writing. 

There is a split of two units (Unit One is the creative challenge and then Unit Two is the teaching others part) and I am currently working on Unit Two, with Unit One slowly working in the background. 

So Unit 2? Teaching others. It can also be an event or a series of workshops or lessons. I wanted to stick closely with my creative challenge and so have put myself forward to host a month celebration of UKYA (or YA novels in general!). 

For the year that I've been at my college, YA books seem to be disregarded. Thrown down as something "not as important" as classical literature. I want to show other students at my college that that is wrong and in a way it is much harder to write for a YA audience as we, well I think I do, don't have a very good tolerance of books that aren't enjoyable to oneself. I feel that adults are resilient with books if they don't seem as good to start with but on the other hand, for me sometimes that isn't the case! There is a equal or somewhat harder task for authors who target us and that shouldn't be looked upon as something "rubbish" or "less important" or "not gifted" in any way.

So at the end of January I wrote and gave my proposal to the English department to see whether I would get the go ahead. AND...I have!! 
My plan is to have this celebration in March, my rough plan so far goes something like this:
1st Week: YA book club sort of meeting/chat. Possible book swap.
2nd Week: Author visit - Talk
3rd Week: (Different) Author visit - Workshop
4th Week: YA book club sort of meeting/chat. Round Up. Possible book swap.

On top of this, I just recently gave the librarian at my college my proposal to also get them involved in it all. I want to display YA books and create recommendation card for which people can look over then possibly read. (Want in on that? Post a comment below with a title, author and a little summary of the book and why you recommend it!)

I think that the main reason though for my excitement is the fact that I get to work with something that I already love. Although, yes, this is going to be a drag, especially since I have my exams, but I am so excited to share what I love. Being hopeful, I hope that it really shows people that not everyone has to be into the classic sort of books. Where this could flop is that no one turns up to any of the events I host, take nothing away from it and they all just hate hate hate reading.  

But that's the last case scenario right? 

Sabrina x

1 comment:

  1. This sounds awesome! I was just reading about how kids and teens aren't reading anymore so go you for spreading the word about great books :-)

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