Table of Contents
What People Are Saying About the Teen InkTM Series...
Real issues and real voices... This awesome collection of stories and poems will inspire readers.
BarnesandNoble.com
What I read in these pages is lifesaving stuff. Not only is much of it astonishingly good from a craft point of view, but it gives teenagers voice. In a culture where adolescents are often ignored or treated as second-class citizens, Teen Ink gives them a place to say loud and clear who they are.
Chris Crutcher
author, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes and Whale Talk
This book is a celebration of how honest, brilliant and passionate teenage voices are. All teens will thoroughly enjoy and relate to this book.
Kim Kirberger
author, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series
Teen Ink is about the trying times of teenage life. Its all about the joys and sorrows that teens go through on a daily basis. This book is about usteenagers! These are our stories, our poems, our lives.
Charles Chip Pinder, age 17
No adult reader can remain untouched by the drama in teens lives; their writings provoke our compassion and insight. Teens themselves will savor every word from compatriots who so eloquently tell the truth.
Cathi Dunn MacRae
editor, Voices of Youth Advocates
Teen Ink is like an open door to the hearts and souls of todays teens.
Melissa Gustafson, age 16
Teen Ink is a forum for teens that the entire family can enjoy, learn from and use to communicate real emotions among themselves.
Chevy Chase
actor
Teens writing for teens about teen stuffwhat could be more compelling?
Amazon.com
Teen Ink is like a teenagers bible to life. Every page is another life lesson to help them grow and mature into young adults.
Lauren Kuller, age 16
Teen Ink brings out the best in Americas youth. They speak unapologetic truths from their hearts.
Rev. Jesse Jackson
civil-rights leader
Teen Ink is the only book for us, by us. All others fail in comparison. This is the only book I have ever read that I truly relate to.
Geoff Richardson, age 17
Their intensity and passion ring resoundingly from each poetry, fiction and nonfiction segment. Each piece is clear and lively, and the mix is varied. The black-and-white photographs and artwork express creative experimentation, which adds to the stark, candid voices of the young authors.
School Library Journal
Every teen I know has been in a relationship, and its wonderful to know that we arent the only teens going through this stuff.
Kamilla Hassan, age 16
Its thrilling to me to read these pieces by teen writersnot only because of the dozens and dozens of new ideasbut because of the passion for writing these teens bring to their work.
R. L. Stine
author, Goosebumps, Fear Street and
Nightmare Room series
Teen Ink is the only book Ive ever heard of that is for teens and written by teens. It can make you cry and make you laugh all within the same story.
Maggie Kelly, age 17
These eloquent writings offer insight into the challenges, losses and changes of teenagers lives. Teen Ink can help us all gain a better understanding of young people.
Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D.
professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
The stories in Teen Ink surely cannot be read only once; the advice they give, support they offer and real-life situations they provide allow the reader to know that he/she is not alone, and the reader is indefinitely connected to all the authors in this intimate literary wonder.
Danielle Scovel, age 16
Teens looking for more substantial fare than music videos, mall sales and fashion magazines should check out Teen Ink. Adults, too, will gain insight into adolescent concerns.
U.S. AirwaysAttachmagazine
I always find myself holding my breath at one point in each story, feeling the same anxiety and will to go on as the writer. Teen Ink truly takes me to another world and helps me look at life in a new light.
Emily Chase, age 13
I am especially impressed when a book can fully engage my teenage son and compete so successfully with his beloved computer games.
Victoria Sutherland
publisher, ForeWord
This book is an original, honest and refreshingly un-cheesy approach to keeping it real. Teenagers are infinitely more savvy, insightful, sensitive and talented than given credit for.
Teenreads.com
Teen Ink is a very inspirational book. It leaves me thinking and always helps me through the rough times.
Desire Swanson, age 16
Teen Ink invites young authors to write down and share their ideas, beliefs, feelings and aspirations.
Howard Gardner
author and educator, Harvard University
An extremely entertaining book with many lessons, laughs and occasional saddness. This book will touch each person who reads it.
Peyton Jones, age 13
Love and Relationships has the touch of a mothers hand. It guides you through a relationship, its good times, its bad ones and gives honest advice on how to lose and love again.
Audrey Bowlin, age 16
Not only does this book touch my heart, it has the potential to inspire and comfort kids all over the world. These stories relate to teens lives and help them realize theyre not alone.
Jake Takiff, age 13
Teen Ink is not only touching; it teaches me a different lesson on each page.
Cristina Buccellati, age 13
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer
to the problem of human existence.
ERICH FROMM
We must all live together as brothers
or perish alone as fools.
DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
To all of those we love,
thank you
Foreword
by R. L. Stine
Where do you get your ideas?
I spend a lot of time talking with young writers, and that is always the first question they ask me.
Its a very hard question to answer. Where do story ideas come from?
Sometimes I make a joke and tell them, I get my ideas at the Idea Store. Of course, this is silly. But after a while, I started thinking: What if there really was an Idea Store?
What departments would you find in an Idea Store?
I think youd find three departmentsthree places where story ideas come from. One would be the Experience Department. It contains everything you see and everything you do.
Two would be the Memory Department. It has everything you remember. The third department I call the What If Department. It contains everything you wonder about, everything you dream up and imagine... everything that makes you ask, What if... ?
I think all story ideas come from these three places. And as you will see, the wonderful stories, essays and poems collected in this book draw their inspiration from all three.
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