By Victoria Galan, Miami-Dade Public Library System

Friday, November 16, 2012 the Miami-Dade Public Library System celebrated the finale of its 2012 Young Adult Writer-in-Residence program with a special evening that celebrated the talented teens and their mentor – young adult author, Kekla Magoon.  The event capped-off the three month Writer-in-Residence program which was made possible by the Knight Foundation.

Since September, these gifted young people have been working alongside Ms. Magoon who mentored them and helped to inspire them to express themselves through their writings. She assisted them in the creative writing process and offered critiques and tips on how to improve their work. The teens also spent this time writing material which will be compiled into a collection of works and will be made part of the Library System’s collection. For junior, Rachel Nogues, being a part of this program helped her work on her writing skills and to start to seriously consider a future career in playwriting. “I love the theater and have acted my whole life, but I recently got interested in playwriting; working with Kekla and learning more about character development has gotten me so excited about writing that I can’t wait to start working on a script – learning from her was so much fun!”

During the evening, each of the participants was awarded a certificate of participation and several teens shared their short stories and poems. For the parents and guests, it was a chance to see the impact the program had on the teens and an opportunity to hear from Ms. Magoon directly.