Posts Tagged ‘Wren’s Nest Publishing Co.’

Midnight Consumption — the New Literary Journal from the Wren’s Nest Publishing Co.

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The Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. has been hard at work on Midnight Consumption, their brand new literary journal. It’ll debut at the Decatur Book Festival on September 4th complete with a literary salon at CORE from 2 – 5 pm.

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.

 

Wren’s Nest Publishing Co. Entering its Fourth Lap!

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Since 2007, we’ve been lucky enough to work with incredible student editors to create three exceptional literary journals.  So we decided to stop while we were ahead.

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!