Posted on by

Issue 3 – Contributors Reveal!

We are so thrilled to share our contributors for Issue 3! We received a record number of submissions this issue and we can’t wait for you to enjoy the final pieces.

Reviewers

Under 18 

Rebecca Downey
Esmée Kidd
Hanna-Rose Sullivan
Aoibhe Toft

Over 18

Camille Boelt Hindsgaul
Joanna Geoghegan
Paddy Lennon
Jessica Militante
Emma Muldoon Ryan
Lorna Mulvihill
Anne Murray
Niamh O’Donnell
Lorna O’Dea
Medb O’Gorman
Luke Power
Anet Rumberg
Aoife Sheehan
Courtney Smyth

Writers

Under 18


Megan Rutter
Molly McDonagh
Charlotte Edwards
Angel Ifyawuchi
Nadine Kelly Hughes
Paxton Calder
Maitreyi Parakh
S. Rupsha Mitra
Anna Holloway

Over 19


Oyanne Gahann
Laura Spierings
Kaden Elijah
Valerie Hunter
Sinéad Creedon
Mark Stewart

Artists

Under 18

Olivia Boylan
Béibhinn Collins
Rachel O’Brien


Over 19

Ana Slattery
Martins Deep
Rebecca Johnson

Features

Jennifer Gouck

Jenny Duffy

Interviews with

Deirdre Sullivan

Áine Ní Ghlinn

Posted on by

Paper Lanterns Halloween Poetry Competition

It’s the time of year for ghouls, goblins, ghosts

All of the creatures that you fear the most

To inspire you to make eery rhymes

About this most spooky and fun of times!

Paper Lanterns are delighted to announce our Halloween Poetry Competition! We want to read your poetry inspired by the most atmospheric time of year. The competition is open for teens (13-18 years) and adults (19+ years) and there will be a winner in each category!

Be in with a chance to win this spooktastic prize:
• The winning poems will be published on the Paper Lanterns website
• A book voucher
• A Halloween goody-bag

The rules are simple:
• Poems must be no longer than 40 lines
• Writing must be appropriate for a teenage audience
• The theme is Halloween – interpret that anyway you like!

How to submit:
• Pay a submission fee of €3.00 through our PayPal account at this link – paypal.me/PaperLanternsJournal
• Keep a note of your PayPal receipt number
• Submit through the form below
o Your poem must be saved as a word doc
o Do not have your name written on the word doc
o You will need to write your PayPal receipt number in this form as proof of your submission fee

You can submit as many times as you like, but you will need to pay the submission fee for each poem.

Deadline is October 25th – winners will be announced on Halloween!

Sponsored Submissions

If you are unable to afford the submission fee, please contact us about arranging a sponsored submission.

If you are interested in donating to the competition to sponsor the submission of a writer, please do get in touch (we will be forever grateful). Email: paperlanternsjournal@gmail.com (please don’t send your submission to us over email – fill in the form!)

That’s it! Time to get writing. We can’t wait to read your booooo-tiful poems!

SUBMISSION FORM
Posted on by

8 Top Tips for Submitting a Feature

Got an idea for a feature article? Want to share your views on Teen & YA Literature? We’d love to hear from you – so get in touch!

We’ve put together some tips to help you put your feature together:

  1. Proposals are accepted! We would be delighted to work with you to make sure the finished piece is the best essay it can be, and to make sure it fits into the style of the journal
  2. If you do want to send a completed essay, great! Just remember we don’t accept academic essays
  3. The essays section basically means “non-fiction”. We just want to hear about your thoughts and observations without a fictional narrative (for that, check out our creative writing submissions!)
  4. What we are looking for from teen writers: anything that interests you! This journal is for and by you. Talk about your love for arts, sports, change you want to see, your experiences. If you feel passionate enough to write about it, we want to read it!
  5. What we want from adult writers: anything that would be an interest to a teen audience. It can be observations on trends in YA lit, an exploration of new art/sports/science/etc for teens, highlighting a platform that is of interest to young folks – ANYTHING for a TEEN AUDIENCE
  6. Familiarise yourself with what we’ve already published to get an idea of what we like. For teens, essays on their love for ballet, learning to read Jane Austen, the role of nostalgia. For adults, the representation of mental health in YA lit, career paths for book lovers, etc
  7. When writing a proposal to submit to us, it should be approx 500 words (but that’s a very loose guideline). In the proposal, highlight what you want to do, how you will do it, and what support you’d need from Paper Lanterns to make it work (access to resources, contacts, etc)
  8. If in doubt, ask! Email us at paperlanternsjournal@gmail.com with any questions.

Happy writing – we can’t wait to read your ideas!

For submissions guidelines, click here

Posted on by

Paper Lanterns Writing Workshop at Dublin Book Festival

We are so thrilled to be doing a live online writing workshop with Dublin Book Festival this November! 

Are you a teenager who loves to write creatively? Or maybe you are a pro at writing your English essays? Or perhaps you are a massive bookworm and love to spend all day reading? Then this workshop is for you! Paper Lanterns is the new literary journal that discusses all things teen and YA literature. Meet the founders, Grace Kelley, Ruth Ennis, and Amy O’Sullivan, who will teach you all you need to know about submitting to literary journals. Learn how to write the best poem, short story, or flash fiction piece that you can. Find out how to create an essay proposal on a topic you are passionate about. Discover how to make an informative and honest book review. At the end of the workshop, you’ll get the chance to showcase some of your creative writing, proposals, or book reviews to the group!

Register for the writing workshop and find out more about Dublin Book Festival here! 

3 black and white headshots of 3 women take up the top two thirds of the page. Below that, white writing on a black background reads "Writing for Young Adults with PAPER LANTERNS'. The Paper Lanterns logo, white on black, sits on either side of the writing.
Register here

Posted on by

Calling all teachers! Get your students involved in Paper Lanterns

Calling all teachers!

Do you have readers, writers and artists in your class that you think would be interested in being involved with Paper Lanterns? We are putting together a newsletter for teachers and other youth workers to help their students get involved.

Sign up to our teacher newsletter for more info –  https://forms.gle/4CxZJuSmyGfFADRR8

Submissions close for Issue 3 on September 13th. We’ve put together a poster that you can print out an stick on your classroom wall, in your library – wherever students will see it! Download here – Paper Lanterns Schools Issue 3

Posted on by

Issue 2 Launch and Issue 3 Submissions Open!

This evening, we are delighted to launch the second issue of Paper Lanterns!

We are delighted to have readings from several contributors from issue two, including Agata Tryhubczak, Caoimhe Weakliam, Bea Rae, Lauren Simone Blanchard, Lucy Hood, Evangeline Henry, Sadbh Kellett, Molly McDonagh, Daniel Fergus Tamulonis, Darcey Dugan, Niamh O’Donnell, and Jennifer Gouck.

You can buy both copies of issue one and issue two on our website: https://paperlanternslit.com/shop/

You can also get it in a number of bookshops:

If you are interested in donating (thank you!), you can do so here: https://bit.ly/3fPowiY Or if you are interested in becoming a patron (super thank you!), you can contact us here: paperlanternsjournal@gmail.com

We are delighted to announce we are now open to submissions for issue three! More information on how to send your work to us can be found on our website: https://paperlanternslit.com/submissi…

Posted on by

Midnight’s Twins

Midnight’s Twins
Holly Race
Hot Key Books, June 2020
Paperback, 419 pages, €8.99
ISBN 9781471409165

Londoner Fern King and her twin brother Ollie have just discovered Annwn, a dream world where dreams and nightmares come to life. Annwn is a mirror of Fern’s real world in London. They soon discover that Annwn is full of dangers and the nightmares are growing stronger.

Midnight’s Twins is a debut novel and the first in a trilogy. With strong characters and amazing world building I was hooked from the beginning and can’t wait for the next in the series! The detail of the world building is impeccable. I was fully immersed and invested throughout. The relationship between twins, Ollie and Fern, is fraught with tension and I found myself going back and forth between who I supported. Between tense battles, friendships are being built and so there is a hint of coming of age about this story.

Overall, this was a fantastic YA fantasy with diverse and interesting characters. We meet fae, angels and other mythical creatures – and the fantastic world building deserves a second mention!

Lisa Whelan

Posted on by

The Stone Balancer


The Stone Balancer
John Townsend
Ransom Publishing, 2019
Paperback, 242 pages, £7.99
ISBN 9781785913624

This book is set in a small seaside town in England in the present day. Fin is a quiet, reserved 14-year-old boy. He lives with his sick mother, who worries about him, and distracts himself from his troubles by practicing his hobby of stone balancing, which is balancing pebbles and sea stones to create a sculpture. He decides to sell photos of his
sculptures to raise money for a local guide dog charity. He befriends a girl called Sophie, who spots something unsettling in his photos. When his mother has to go to hospital for a few weeks, his Uncle Calvin comes to stay with him. Fin soon finds out that his uncle has a violent streak and is only there to swindle Fin out of the inheritance he got from his grandfather. Sophie and Fin also try to solve a murder.

The Stone Balancer is an incredible YA book filled with twists and turns. You’ll feel so hooked onto every word that you won’t be able to put it down! If you enjoy murder mysteries this is 100% the perfect book for you. This book is filled with emotion; fear, anger and joy! It’s very well written, the characters are believable, the story never drags as you’re pulled into Fin’s world. The relationships between the characters feel fully believable and the story is very
convincing.

Author John Townsend was a secondary school teacher who’d written over 300 books. Most of them were educational books for young readers. This is his first for young adults book since he gave up teaching as he’s now a full-time
writer. I thought it was a brilliant read and I’d look forward to reading his next YA book.

Cate Reid, teen reviewer

Posted on by

The M Word

The M Word
Brian Conaghan
Bloomsbury, 2019
Paperback, 337 pages, £7.99
ISBN 9781408871577

Maggie Yates lives with her mother and is about to start studying at her local art college. She has just lost her best friend Moya and is struggling with grief. Brian Conaghan’s latest novel is rooted in reality. His concise prose and portrayal of real issues pull no punches in writing about the effects of grief. Maggie is trying to find a way, any way, to move on from the loss of her friend. She uses music, from The Smiths to Elliot Smith, and also turns to more drastic measures to get through it. Coupled with this, Maggie’s mum has lost her job and is suffering with depression.

Hope for Maggie comes in the form of building new friendships in college and a tentative relationship with her somewhat new-age counsellor, Anna. Much of the story is concerned with Maggie talking to Moya in her head, really trying to understand what happened and how to carry on herself.

Brian Conaghan’s writing is sparse and economical, full of short sentences which often drop pronouns, really getting to the point. The characters feel well developed, even as they sometimes only grunt at each other as is often the case between Maggie and Mum. This is not to say that they dislike each other, rather that both are dealing with their own demons.

Maggie’s new friends, particularly Davis, bring a levity to the plot along with a subplot regarding a blind date for Mum. The M Word is a fantastic read with brilliant characters. Its portrayal of grief is unflinching and powerful. Readers should be aware that it contains some disturbing and adult themes.

Derek Carney

Posted on by

Shakespeare’s Ghost

Shakespeare’s Ghost
Mary Hoffman
The Greystones Press, 2016
Paperback, 358 pages, £8.99
ISBN 9781911122005

The year is 1610, and William Shakespeare is the most popular playwright in England.

Edmund Lambert is a 17-year-old on the cusp of change. As an actor in the King’s Men theatre group, he is now beginning to play male parts instead of the female parts in plays (that’s right, in England women were only allowed to perform on stage from the 1660s!). He is coming towards the end of his apprenticeship to the theatre company and does not know where his life is soon to lead him. Until he starts receiving visits from an ethereal woman in green, who nobody else can see. Who else could he turn to, but Shakespeare himself?

For all historical fiction fanatics this read is fun and exciting and it is a brilliant page-turner for readers wanting to learn a little more about life in Shakespeare’s England. Possibly, Mary Hoffman sometimes sacrificed character development and plot intricacies for a more educational approach. In this way, this is the perfect read for anyone fascinated by the early modern period, with an exciting supernatural twist. However, there were times when some seemingly important details were left unexplained and unexplored as a result.

The setting and time felt thoroughly researched and authentic. For this, I applaud the writer. As a Shakespeare fanatic myself, I enjoyed the many references to his plays and personal life. I do wonder if a certain level of knowledge is expected of the reader, but regardless the fantastical element lends to a thrilling read for young teens.

Sinéad Creedon