About Tennessee Young Writers

Humanities Tennessee presents to Tennessee's young people four programs that promote and nurture the love of reading and writing:

The Letters about Literature contest encourages students in grades 4–12 to read a book and write a letter to the author about how the book impacted their lives. Close to 1,000 students from across the state submitted letters to the contest in 2009.

The Tennessee Young Writers' Workshop is a week long writing workshop for students who have completed grades 7–12. The instructors, published authors, are skilled writing teachers. The students all share a love of writing and desire to develop their craft that cannot be found in a regular classroom. Many students return for another year at the workshop because it makes such an impact on their lives. In the words of one student, "The workshop absolutely changed my life."

Student Reader Days bring young readers and writers together around the Southern Festival of Books. Authors are sent to elementary, middle and high schools for outstanding presentations and discussion, and some classes (depending on age level) are offered the opportunity to come to a free, student only author event field trip before the Festival. Each student participating in Student Reader Day events is given a free copy of the visiting author's book to encourage further reading and discussion.

The Statewide High School Reading Initiative began as an effort to promote a one state/one book program for teenagers. In 2007, Humanities Tennessee invited students from across the state to request free copies of Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos, and the program distributed more than 3,000 copies of the book. Many teachers were able to incorporate this book into their lessons and one Memphis school even created an entire six weeks of study around the book and used it to inspire students to write their own memoirs.

If you would like more information on any of these programs, please contact Lacey Cook, 615-770-0006, ext. 19.

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