Blog on groupthing

We want your views!
If you're 11 - 19 years old, live in England then we'd like to get your views on the creative activites for young people in your area; the venues you go
to and how you'd like to be involved in putting on creative activities.

Do our quick survey by 20 May and you could win £25 of iTunes vouchers.

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Monsters of Men - the final part of  the Chaos Walking trilogy - is here!

groupthing are big fans of Patrick Ness and his books so check out the great Monsters of Men video, read the book and post your reviews!

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Louise Rennison is the Reigning Queen of Teen and you can now join the masses of book-loving teens from across the globe by nominating the author you'd love to be crowned Queen of Teen 2010!

Did she make you laugh 'til you cried?

Did she make you cry 'til you couldn't read?

Did she make you want to read more and more?

Queen of Teen gives you the chance to say a big thank you to your fave author! Queen of Teen 2010 is calling for nominations so get your one in now!

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Hello. I'm Beverley and I'll be writer in residence on groupthing from now until August 2010.

I've been writing ever since I can remember with a few gaps when studies, work, or (most recently) small children sucked all the energy from me. I've written poems, stories and novels for adults and children but I'm afraid you've pobably never heard of me because (with the exception of a few poems here and there) I've not yet made it to publication.

I've been close to being published. A literary agent once phone me and said that she thought my book could be a 'bestseller'; another invited me to a meeting at her glamorous London offices; the last children's book I wrote made it as far as an editor in a publishing house and I was shortlisted for a 'find a new children's writer' competition run by Faber and Waterstones. But so far, fame and fortune have eluded me.

I love writing and reading and all things literary and I especially love helping young writers to achieve their ambitions so I'm looking forward to chatting with you on groupthing.

What am I doing on groupthing?
Thanks to the Arts Council I've received a grant to help me to re-write a book for young adults which has been on the back burner for a number of years. I've got two days a week and five months to turn my first draft (which is all wrong!) into a publishable work of fiction and I'm hoping that you'll help me to do it.

Although agents and a literary consultant like the story, the structure has been wrong and I'm now beginning to totally revamp the novel with a new structure. I'm hoping that through groupthing I can try out some ideas on you while, at the same time, encourage you with your own writing.

Check out Beverley's group
Read the first extract of Beverley's novel Have you ever fallen in love
Find out more about Beverley

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Do you feel you are free to say what you think? Or do you ever feel like you get 'shot down' for saying what's on your mind?

If you're 15 and over, come along to the Free Word Centre Saturday 17 April, 3pm to find out more about freedom of expression, censorship and self censorship, using drama, games and discussion - and put yourself on a new map of ideas and expression.


There is no right or wrong - everyone's opinion matters!

Don't Shoot the Messenger is run by Index on Censorship and Project Phakama UK

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<Here at groupthing HQ we're very excited about Akala's new album release in May  - DoubleThink - inspired by George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World  and Yevgeny Zamvatin's 'We'' no less! Akala's been busy with us on MyVoice and we're planning some top secret things with him for when DoubleThink comes out - so watch this space! Here's a taster of the single XXL.

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Young people from Crawley HeadSpace helped organise the Teenage Kicks event for Random House last week.

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