A few weeks ago, we were honored with the Leader in the Literary Arts Award from the Ann Arbor Book Festival.
We are delighted to be a part of this prestigious award (and thrilled to be grouped in with co-winner Keith Taylor). We cannot stress enough how important organizations like AABF are — they help us celebrate books and literacy as a community, which is invaluable to our students, our volunteers, the teachers we work with, and many others.
At the awards ceremony, 826 student Sam Kass read a poem we liked very much. We like pretty much everything Sam writes. (SPOILER ALERT: Look for new work from her in two upcoming publications:
The 826michigan OMNIBUS, Volume 4, and our latest workshop chapbook, whose title was taken from one of Sam’s poems, The Distance Between Two Sides of a Color. CONGRATS SAM, WE LOVE YOU!)
Inside 826michigan
by Sam Kass, age 10Inside 826michigan there are tables and books.
Groups of excited people sketch out story-boards,
Push together ideas,
Pass back and forth good vibes.Inside 826michigan there are good vibes.
Kids raise their hands, adults answer.
We read poems,
Share drawings,
And listen to each other’s stories.Inside 826michigan there are listeners.
We listen with nods,
We listen with hands,
We listen with heart.Inside 826michigan there is Heart.
Instructors come in with smiles on their faces.
Children come in with all they ever need —Good Ideas and hands to write them down.
We don’t know about you, but that last line gives us goosebumps every time we read it. And it reminds us of the great joy we get to experience, over and over again: Watching young writers write, and grow older, and write, and so on.
— The Editors Amy —