Bookmark: New online journal will highlight kids

I think it is a wonderful, crucial thing — especially now — for children and young adults to have the opportunity to write seriously and then publish and showcase their work.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the future we are building now is for them, for good or bad, and shouldn't they have some say in how things go? Shouldn't they have a place to write about matters enormous and mundane — COVID and lockdown and school shootings and school-from-home, but maybe also their pets, their gardens, their best friends, their favorite video games?

For the past seven years, Blue Marble Review, an online journal based in the Twin Cities, has published poetry, prose and artwork by young people all over the world, ages 13-22.

When lockdown began, the editors solicited COVID-related writings and published a special edition of writing and artwork.

Last year, they went to ink on paper, publishing a really beautiful five-year anthology filled with stunning work. Short essays, stories and poems — about an inspiring teacher, a fight with a parent, a defiant poem about transformation after loss. ("You left me out / to get hard and stale / and now / I'm just crusty / You might as well bake me / into garlic bread / So someone will appreciate me") These things were written by children? They were, and they're great. (The garlic bread poem was written by Sierra Woelfel of Kansas City, Mo.)

And now Twin Cities writer Anika Fajardo has started another outlet for young writers, specifically geared toward Minnesotans.

Funded in part with a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Fajardo has launched a website called MNKidsWrite.org to showcase the work of young Minnesota writers.

This online journal skews slightly younger than Blue Marble — it's for children from kindergarten through senior year of high school — and at the moment is an empty website waiting to be populated.

So, populate it!

"During the pandemic, we have learned the value and ubiquity of online media," Fajardo writes.

"Most young people now have experience and access with digital platforms, whether school Chromebooks or phones. Much of our lives are now lived in virtual spaces, and while some of this will change as we fully emerge from the pandemic, these online platforms will likely continue."

Students are invited to submit their work through the website, or by e-mailing info@mnkidswrite.org. There's no fee to submit (nor is an honorarium paid for publication). Writers will be able to share their work via various social media platforms.

There is so much toxicity online — especially for young people, who know how to navigate the web in ways that a lot of us older folk cannot even imagine and in places where we cannot protect them.

It is a powerful and important thing that Anika Fajardo is doing, giving them a safe place where they can be creative and open and honest and fearless.

I hope many, many children write, and submit.

And I hope many, many, many adults read what they have to say, and pay attention.

Laurie Hertzel is the senior editor for books at the Star Tribune. books@startribune.com