Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Teen Author Boot Camp 2014



 Another awesome TABC has come and gone!

This year was especially epic. In the months leading up to the conference Writers Cubed spent endless hours preparing for the almost 500 attendees who would descend upon Utah Valley University to attend the fourth annual writing conference just for teens.

Once again we joined host, Rebecca Cressman on KSL radio to talk about the upcoming TABC and our amazing line up of authors. Author Sara B. Larson came onto the interview with us.



The day of the conference was high energy and exciting. The teens came ready to learn and have fun.



 They filled the Grand Ballroom.


 When our awesome authors filed in the kids went nuts!


J. Scott Savage, Tyler Whitesides, Frank Cole, Sarah Eden, Peggy Eddleman, Tyler Jolley, B.K. Bostick, Renee Collins, Kasie West, Jonathan Ryan, Lisa Mangum, Amy Jameson, Bree Despain, Sara B. Larson, Ally Condie and our first keynote of the day, James Dashner!


Dashner gave a terrific presentation that kept the kids riveted. We are all excited to see the movie version of his book, The Maze Runner, out this fall.


I had a good time getting to hang out with all of our authors. Dashner and Savage are rock stars.


 My friend, actor Richard Sharrah popped in to say Hi and the kids swamped him for pictures. And my buddy, author Jonathan Ryan flew out from Ohio to present a great class on writing scary stories to make your reader pee their pants.


Ally Condie presented at the end of the day. She is one of the coolest, nicest people on the planet.


She even wore camo for the occasion! (=



Every year we are so impressed by the caliber of writing we see in out First Chapter Contest entries. These are talented teens! We absolutely love the kids and enjoy providing this awesome day for them. They are the bright future of writing and they have a lot to teach us.


 We couldn't do it without our fabulous, crazy, author friends. Every year just keeps getting better!


Many of the classes were recorded. We will be posting presentations from TABC on TABC TV.
Check them out!