Description

Monday(s), September 15, 22, 29 & October 6, 2025 from 6:30 - 8:30 pm CT, Hybrid (available in-person and online via Zoom). 

Nonmember $200; Member  $170; Student/Educ/Mil $140

Have you always wanted to write YA but thought you were too old to connect with young readers? Learn to write YA from a place of lived experience!

In this four-session workshop series, Junior Library Guild Gold Standard author Gume Laurel III will share personal insight into YA novel writing. We’ll start by reflecting on our own young adult experiences, so we can write from a place of familiarity. From there, we will lean into our own young adult writing voices, regardless of our age or writing level. Then, we’ll get to writing! Students will leave class with at least one rough draft of a YA flash fiction story.

Students will leave the course with:
*A clearer understanding of the young adult category
*Connection to their own young adult writing voice
*One or more drafted chapters of a young adult flash fiction story

Gume is a Texan, native to the Rio Grande Valley, along the southernmost US/Mexico borderlands. He has dedicated himself to crafting literary works that promote inclusion and showcase diverse characters with intersectional identities. Gume’s stories especially highlight the underrepresented groups he is a part of: Latine, Chicanx and queer. His first hi-lo verse novel, Samson & Domingo, published by West 44 Books, received Honorable Mention for Best in LGBTQ+ Themed Book from the International Latino Book Awards. His most recently published hi-lo verse novel, Solar Punks, gives readers a hopeful look into a future powered by renewable energy, and is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection.