Mission of the Merlyn's Pen Foundation

SINCE 1985, Merlyn's Pen has produced and supported school programs that promote creativity, critical thinking and writing, and self-acceptance. Its most public service since 2001 has been the New Library of Young Adult Writing, which showcases compelling works of fiction and nonfiction authored by America's teens, grades 6-12. All the works in the New Library appeared first in Merlyn's Pen: The National of Student Writing, published between 1985 and 2001. The models and standards displayed in the New Library give heart to beginning writers; to advanced teen writers, the Library is an online resource of successful models to explore, engage, and emulate.

Teachers and educators use the New Library in their attempts to establish benchmarks of writing achievement at the local, state, and national levels. Many works from the New Library appear on state-level writing and reading assessments.

Why Pay Attention to Teen Writers?

by R. James Stahl, Merlyn's Pen Founder & "Down to the Sea" Director

 

When multiculturalism opened the school door to more women writers, more African-American, Hispanic, and Native American writers, an unexpected bird flew in too. Common and small, as ubiquitous as the sparrow, this bird’s song caught everyone by surprise. Fresh. Real. Accessible. Students responded to it. Teachers noticed their interest. Why had no one heard it before?

 

The compelling narrative voice of America’s teenage authors took all of us by surprise. Writing so new, and so unexpectedly articulate... it made the feature pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and all the important journals read by English teachers and librarians. "Uniformly excellent," said the Wilson Library Bulletin. "Surprisingly good," announced School Library Journal. And readers of English Journal praised this new fiction as "outstanding," and "excellent," and "most useful in the English classroom."

 

We love success stories, and since 1985 that small bird has found its way across the nation, even across oceans. Fiction by American teens became required reading -- actually built into the syllabus -- in more than 1,000 U.S. schools. Today nearly 5,000 readers each week view stories in the New Library of Young Adult Writing.  For instruction. For discussion. For the pure pleasure of it. American teen fiction is now read in Germany, too, and in France and Japan and China, where students learn to speak English with stories and essays the New Library of Young Adult Writing. Now that’s quite a flight from 1985!

 

We honor the young adults who have given themselves to the writing of this new literature, and we salute the prescient teachers who have kept the door open, who have listened, who have recognized a new genre when they saw one. Merlyn’s Pen and the New Library of Young Adult Writing are proud to bring you, effective immediately, the next generation of fiction by American teen writers.

 

For more information, contact merlyn@merlynspen.org, or 800-247-2027.