new! At night, the bed became a terrarium … [Pencil Shavings on "Hotel Beds"]

new! The thrill of being wrong [A Good Read by Laura Wanamaker]

I press the solid force that is right now [Verse by Laurel Durning-Hammond]

Don’t touch that cat! [Five Short Verses by Sadie McCarney]

She smuggled back a piece of sun … [Verse by Ashton Kittredge]

The Naturalists: A reading [Out Loud! by Erica Berry]

the endless loops of boredom twist … [Verse by Eli Mandel]

How to become an orphan [Verse by Haley Markbreiter]

First were the broken sunsets … [Fiction by Melanie Wang]

Benjamin Karl takes on the Janice case [An Opening Scene by Evangeline Delgado]

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Current Pencil Shavings Topics:
• Newspaper Headlines
• Nakedness
[Submissions to either topic due by 1/5/10]

From the Archive:
• Listen up, everyone! This is the birth canal. [Nonfiction]
• After this, you will know everything [Fiction]
• Migration [Pencil Shavings]
• Photo Booths [Pencil Shavings]
• On rhyming “prove” with “love” [A Good Read]

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TBPO News:
• Kim MacCormack, W&P ’10, was named one of two winners of the High School Poetry Competition at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, where she read with Pulitzer Prize–Winner Louise Gluck and Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

• The Work @ Play: Free workshops for New England–area teachers of writing

• Faculty playwright Ronan Noone‘s latest work is “Little Black Dress.” Read the Boston Globe‘s profile here.
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The Blue Pencil Online is edited and produced by the students in the Writing & Publishing Program at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, in Natick, Massachusetts. The magazine seeks to publish the best of literary work in English by young writers (12–18) around the world.

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Curious about studying writing at Walnut Hill School for the Arts? Contact us here!

Have a question for the Editors? Send an e-mail to: thebluepencil@walnuthillarts.org.

To keep in the TBPO loop, join us on Facebook, and sign up for TBPO updates here.

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Submissions

All features of the site — including Pencil Shavings, Out Loud!, The Draft Board, and A Good Read — are open for submissions through our online Submission Manager. Visit our Writers’ Guidelines for information about how to submit your work.

Read about the new Elizabeth Bishop Prizes in Verse, Fiction, and Playwriting

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Teachers: Download the TBPO Poster for your classrooms!