The book features the work of 41 different high school students from around Atlanta.

Many thanks to Alicia Johnson for designing the cover. The stars of Orion will be die cut, which to us regular people means our book will be filled with holes.

Are you familiar with the Wren’s Nest Publishing Co? Let me break it down for a second —

(1) Each summer we invite a handful of high school students to learn how to create, edit, publish, and market a literary journal.

(2) The editors learn the ropes of the print industry from professionals in the field. This year they benefitted from the brains of Jamie Allen, Jamie Gumbrecht, the aforementioned Alicia, Hannah Palmer, and Kimberly Turner.

(3) We go to cool places to check out how folks make their living with the written word. This year Jamie G. led us behind the scenes at CNN.

(4) The students come up with a name, solicit submissions from their peers, make all editorial decisions, work with a designer to communicate their vision, and organize a literary salon where their peers — freshly minted published authors — read their work.

It’s fun and important. To tell you the truth though, we need your help to keep it going. Can you please help us with one of the following? 

(1) Buy a copy of the book! They’re $5. If you can’t make it to the Decatur Book Festival, it will be available online.

(2) Tell someone about this program! If you want to be super helpful, tell someone who might want to participate next year.

(3) Work “Midnight Consumption” into your everyday vocabulary. It will feel right, promise.

Thanks for your support and see you at the Decatur Book Festival.

Have you heard about this little event called the Decatur Book Festival? It’s over Labor Day Weekend.

They’re expecting a tidy 80,000 visitors or so, and 300 featured authors. No biggie. I mean, it’s only the largest independent book festival in the country. Whatever.

Anyhow, they do this one cool thing — they release a book each year in conjunction with the festival. As in, they promote one single book, just one that’s released by and for the festival itself. And — so weird, you guys — it’s always been the literary journal created by the high school students in the Wren’s Nest Publishing Co.!

This year’s journal, The Bard & The Muckraker, will premiere at the DBF. It’ll be sold at the Wren’s Nest tent and by the student editors themselves all over the festival. You should purchase a copy. It will feel great.

While I’m being bossy, here’s something else for you to do — celebrate the journal on Sunday, September 5th at their literary salon from 2 – 5 pm at Several Dancers Core. There will be live music, free food, board games, and an unlimited supply of air conditioning.

Plus you get to support these teenagers who have worked so hard over the summer just to get someone like you to notice their work. Someone just like you!

P.S. You can purchase a copy here in case we miss you at the Decatur Book Festival.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the winner:

This cover was created by Emily Hauck of Lampe-Farley Communications.  (The other cover, for the many of you who fell deeply, deeply in love with it, was created by the talented Alicia Johnson.)

Thanks so much to both of our designers — this was an incredibly difficult decision for our students, mainly because both designs are just so darn great.  (A wonderful problem to have.)

Additionally, thanks to all of you who told us what you thought — the students appreciated your opinions, especially when the debate was stalled in a dead heat (see: 3 hours, seriously).  Look at you, making a difference.

Thanks, everyone!

The answer is: yes, and thank goodness for that.  This week the students get to choose a cover for their literary journal – exciting!  The journal debuts at the Decatur Book Festival to thousands of bookish types, so this is no small decision, no sir.

Here are the two submissions, created by local, incredibly talented designers (whose names we’ll splash all over the place once y’all have let us know what you think).  The students gave the designers a few cues, and both did absolutely amazing jobs of incorporating their requests.

Behold, #1 (remember, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger):

#2 requires a touch of explanation.  The designer created it so that it could be read from both directions (with the interior pages printed right side up, and the other half upside down).  Here is it from both angles:

Flipped!

So!  What do y’all think?  Which do you like better?  Tell us everything!

I’m not saying your opinions will actually affect anything, but it’s sure nice to hear ‘em.

As is his habit, Editor-in-Chief Josh Jackson graciously showed us around, which was great.   The students, as is their habit, kept a healthy distance.  A good call, since Josh is absolutely the meanest person I know.*

*Untrue.

We stopped in the offices of MetaLeap Design, who do all the graphic design for Paste, but also for other people, too.  They’re nice like that.

Here are the students with their futures (fingers crossed!) ahead of them: the interns!  Doesn’t it look glamorous?!

Our editors had a lot of questions for Paste’s Editors, all of which they graciously answered.  This is probably when Associate Editor Rachael said that interviewing people made her want to die.

A different view, this time including Editors Austin and Michael.

Paste, go figure, receives a lot of CDs.  Many of them end up here, and some are even on shelves!

They even listen to them sometimes!

Paste Multimedia Producer Kevin told the students about the time he met some dudes who were cleaning up trash at a music festival.  They handed him their demo CD.   Kevin had previously vowed to listen to every CD he was handed by a human, and so he listened.

The result?  The world now knows about The Low Anthem!  (P.S.  Every time Kevin tells that story, he’s handed many CDs.  And he still listens to every one.  What a mensch!)

Everyone who performs at Paste signs this wall.  It’s neat.

Here’s Rachael enjoying a token of our appreciation, courtesy of The Cookie Studio.  Yes, they are that big, and yes, they are that good.

Thanks again to the staff of Paste for sacrificing their time for the sake of our students’ bragging rights.  See y’all next summer!

It’s ticking!

Applications to be an Editor in our life-changing, summer-making, generally enjoyable, highly competitive high school publishing program are due Sunday, May 9th.

I am super pleased to report that we already have a solid number of applicants, but we’re not nearly where we want to be by next week.  So far we’ve heard back from 1/12 of the high schools we contacted.  We can kick that up to 1/6, I just know it!

So!  Please help us get the word out where we couldn’t ourselves.  This really is a great opportunity for high school students — I wouldn’t lie.  Not about anything that isn’t funny, anyways.

All information about the program, including application forms, can be found here!

KIDDING!

Nope, we’re entering our fourth year with the Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. and couldn’t be more excited.  Sure, we’ve been harping about our new KIPP STRIVE program, but behind the scenes, WNPCo. is on and poppin’.

We’ve sent informational packets to all of the English Department heads of every high school we could think of in Fulton and Dekalb counties and have already heard back from several students interested in Editor positions.  It’s working!

“What do you mean, Editor positions?” you ask.  You crazy ignoramus!  Looks like it’s time for me to break down the whole program.

• –> Throughout the summer we work with a team of 8-10 student editors, all Atlanta-area high school students, who do all the work for us while we take the credit.  Just kidding!  Kind of!  The students really do make all editorial decisions, including which pieces to include, how to format the text, the name of the publication, choosing the cover, etc.  They also learn how to market the journal, and are responsible for soliciting all of the submissions.
• –> The submissions are all from Atlanta-area high school students.  They include short stories, essays, poetry, and artwork — and they’ve been darn good, if I do say so.
• –> The journal is created with and for the Decatur Book Festival, the country’s largest independent book festival.  The journal debuts there on Labor Day weekend and the Editors organize a literary salon to celebrate the journal and its contributors.
• –> Because of our ties to the good people at the DBF, we’ve also been able to do great things like tour the AJC, tour Paste Magazine’s offices (the students’ favorite trip each year), and have writers, authors, marketing professionals and other experts in the publishing world talk to the group throughout the summer.  Which is important, because Lain and I don’t know what we’re doing.

(Our 2009 Editors deciding which of Paste’s awards to steal.)

Lots and lots of information about the program can be found here, including the Editor application due date (*cough* May 9th) and the submission deadline (*double cough* July 5th).

I suggest taking a gander and then telling every teacher, parent, and overachieving teenager you know about the program.  We can only get the word out so far, which is where you come in!

Also, you know what’s fun to do?  Our bidding!  Thank you very much!

It’s like StoryCorps + 826 Valencia + the kids in our neighborhood.  Y’all with me?

KIPP STRIVE Academy is the new APS charter school just around the corner in the old J.C. Harris Elementary building.  Starting in late March, each week the Wren’s Nest Publishing Company will bring volunteers with significant writing experience to work 1-on-1 with about 25 KIPP STRIVE 5th graders. The goal is to help improve and broaden their writing skills.

We’ll be working on a creative nonfiction project — the students will identify a great story told to them by a significant adult in their life, be it a parent, grandparent, neighbor, whomever.  Volunteers will guide the students, helping them craft the story to the best of their abilities.

The stories will be compiled for a book to be released at the Decatur Book Festival.  We’ll have a big book release party to celebrate at the DBF.

Our mission boils down to the fact that everyday people have remarkable stories, and that these stories deserve to be heard. We’ve got an opportunity to tell the stories of our community, and you have the opportunity to help these students find their voices.

StoryCorps and 826 Valencia in particular have been inspirations in demonstrating the power of story and the power of 1-on-1 tutoring.  See for yourself –

We’re looking for enthusiastic volunteers to join us in this venture, starting… now.  Interested?

Check out the details below and then email Amelia (amelia@wrensnestonline.com) with “Writing! Woo!” in the subject line before March 12th. She’ll send you a (very brief) application form.

• Orientation sessions (2 hours maximum; beers to follow) will begin in mid-March
• Tutoring sessions will be held Tuesday afternoons from 3 – 4 pm, April – early June
• Volunteers must be willing to commit to 10 hours of service over a 2 month span.
• Volunteers must have experience in some sort of writing (you need not have written a book, mind you! We’re merely looking for good writers. If you think you qualify, you probably do. Amelia, for example, wrote a lot of literature papers in college and now writes this blog. She counts!)

Finally, we would deeply appreciate it if you would forward this opportunity to anyone you feel would be great for this project, but isn’t smart enough to regularly read our blog.  Assembling 20 – 25 volunteers is no small feat, but with your help, we feel up to the task.

Thanks for your patience with our blog; there was many a kink to be ironed out, but now everyone can be happy again.  Especially since we have Decatur Book Festival pictures for you!

This is what Lain and I look like when we’re not in front of our computers.  You know, uneasy.

As a reminder, though the pictures are posted on Facebook, you do NOT need a facebook account to view them.  Just click on this link, sit back, and enjoy.

(I especially love the DBF's graphic design this year)

We’re getting pumped about the opportunity to meet hundreds of visitors and say things like, “Yes, the Wren’s Nest does still exist.  We can’t believe it either.”

Furthermore, we’ll be debuting something big — our new banner!  Worth the (non-existent) price of admission alone, it will surely help you locate our tent between the Children’s Stage and the Gazebo.

But that’s not all that’s in store for us, no sir.  On Sunday afternoon our Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. student editors will be hosting a salon/cofeehouse to celebrate their literary journal, Wayfarer’s Diary.  Hey! You should come!

Not only will the students and authors be reading their pieces, but there will be live music, free food, and most importantly, board games!  Oh, and you can buy the journal there too. (5 bucks – cheap!)

So join me and the students – a charming group, if I do say so — at Several Dancer’s Core between 2 and 5pm on the Decatur Square, right above the MARTA station.  See you there!