The third annual Teen SummerZine program will return to Lancaster on Tuesdays, June 6 and 20, July 11 and 25 and Aug. 1 and 15. The sessions will begin at 4 p.m.; the July sessions will be held virtually over Zoom, and the June and August sessions will take place at Manheim Township Public Library, 595 Granite Run Drive, Lancaster.

Through the program, youths ages 12 to 19 will have opportunities to collaborate with multiple guest authors to write poetry and short stories, as well as work together on comics and visual art. At the end of the program, the students' work will be published in a printed magazine that will be available at each library in Lancaster County.

The meetings in June will feature guest author Jared Reck of Hanover. Reck teaches eighth-grade language arts and has written young adult novels such as "Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love" and "A Short History of the Girl Next Door." In July, the meetings will be hosted by Kayla Miller, an author and illustrator based in New York. Miller wrote and illustrated the graphic novel series "Click" and co-authored its spin-off series, "Besties." The August meetings will feature Kwame Ivery, an English teacher and author based in New Jersey. Ivery released his first young adult novel, titled "The Problem With the Other Side," in 2021 and has worked on various screenplays.

During the first meeting of each month, the guest authors will give a presentation to students and offer insight on their respective careers. After the presentation, the author will provide students with a creative prompt and spend the remainder of the meeting helping them write, draw or make comics based on the prompt. For the second meeting of the month, the guest authors will return to host a workshop and share their creative methods as the kids develop their own material.

"The guest authors will share their own work with students and ask for feedback. It's a cool aspect to the program because these kids are the authors' main audience and they want to know what they're thinking," said Lindsay Bandy, the program's supervisor. "I work with the guest author for constructive feedback strategies, and they work with the students to make each other's work better." Bandy is also a published author who writes young adult historical fiction.

The Teen SummerZine program was introduced in 2021 as a way to creatively engage students over the summer while they are not in school. The program won the Best Practices Award from the Pennsylvania State Library Association and was held virtually for its first two years. This is the first year that the program will have in-person meetings and workshops for students. "We didn't have any county-wide teen programs for the summer; many programs are only tailored to younger kids," Bandy said. "We wanted to do something to reach the older kids and help them to be creative over the summer break." In December, the program's participants will gather at the Manheim Township Public Library to celebrate the publication with cupcakes.

For more information, visit https://tinyurl.com/teensummerzine.