Award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt will be special guest speaker and awards presenter at the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District’s event for teen writers on Saturday, Oct. 22.
The Imagined Ink Awards Celebration will be at 2 p.m. at Vancouver Community Library, 901 C St.
Schmidt, a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., received both a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor for “Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy” and a Newbery Honor for “The Wednesday Wars.” His book “Okay for Now” was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2011.
Schmidt will speak and present the awards for the library district’s annual writing contest for youth, Imagined Ink. Aspiring young writers submitted original stories of no more than 1,000 words in any genre, topic or format to the contest in September.
Prizes are awarded in two age groups: grades six through eight, and grades nine through 12. The winning stories are published on the district website at www.fvrl.org.
