Sites for Young Adults who love to Write
(and ones to inspire those who don't!)

Finding sites for young adults and emerging writers to publish their work can be tricky. This list was put together with the assistance of a group of students in my sister Katherine Cantrill's Creative Writing on the Web course at University of the Arts this summer. This group is very serious about writing and publishing their work and took a great deal of time visiting and evaluating sites to suit their needs and visions. The trick comes in finding sites that fit the wide variety of needs and interests of young adults, while also providing a forum for thoughtful exchange and supportive feedback. As a group we were able to find a few that were really exciting!

The list of sites included here are recommended at starting points. They have been scanned for basic content, ease of use and publishing opportunities for an approximately under 25 group. However the only way to know how appropriate these sites really are, is to visit them yourself and/or with your students and spend some time evaluating the quality and appropriateness of the content.

Those sites of greatest interest were websites that supported students and young writers in publishing their work and getting feedback:

  • Inkspot for Young Writers
    Inkspot for Young Writers is a subsection of the larger Inkspot website. This includes information for writers serious about finding opportunities for publishing as well as forums for publishing work and getting feedback. The forums are basically designed as threaded bulletin boards providing a fairly informal place for feedback and discussion.
  • AHA! Poetry
    A low graphic, but high content site, AHA! Poetry is an on-line site of AHA Books in Gualala, California run by a woman named Jane Reichhold. It seems to be a well maintained site that has won awards by reputable educational sites such at Blue Web'n. There are open mic pages, places to get critiques on works-in-progress, interactive collaborative poetry, and tons of information.
  • Teenlit.com
    This site publishes work formal, provides discussion forums for teen writers and on-line writing workshops. It also includes some terrific information about on-line research, Internet safety and a bunch of book suggestions.
  • Devour my Voice
    This is a stranger site, but interesting. The publishers write, "Our focus is on the process of writing, so we have divided the WEB-site into stages in that process: brainstorming, work-in-progress, finished work, and opportunities for publication and readings." They include many ways to participate with collaborative writing.
  • Author Me
    This is a web-support group for new authors to publish in fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Some websites provide opportunities for young adults to submit their writing for publication without open forums for feedback. It is most likely that works submitted are reviewed by an editorial board and then accepted or not:

There are also several websites that are designed for the more general young adult interest. Most of these also include places for discussion and various types of submissions:

Youth Outlook!, or YO! is a publication by young adults for young adults that is a great source of excellent writing about a variety of topics. Although you cannot submit work (there is a full-time staff working on this), it can be a resource for interesting articles and essays for young adults. They also maintain The Beat Within, a publication that comes from youth run workshops held in San Francisco's Juvenile Hall.

Many of these resources were found using writing/literature/poetry directories. Below are some directories that we used -- visit them yourself to find a bunch more sites. Let me know if you find something great!

Specifically Young Adult Oriented:

General:

And here are a few formal writing resources:

Have fun!