Josh Robbie South Africa
The 2018 young writer program with Press Service International in conjunction with Christian Today commences this Monday 15 January.
This young writer program initiated in 2009 has developed in these past nine years, into separate identities for the sole purpose of clarity.
Week 1 - International young writers
Week 2-5 - Australian young writers
In other words there are 5 weeks per Cycle. There are 10 Cycles in the year.
Kiwi young writers run their own separate schedules run similarly to the Australian model.
All in all, there are 85 young people writing 10 articles a year, one per Cycle. It is a mammoth effort to see all this undertaken with an army of volunteer young people ensuring articles get to the publishing stage.
Kandima Awendila ambique
Those behind the scenes
Each of those 5 weeks has a Week Coordinator whose connects to each of those young writers with their due date.
Each of those 5 weeks has a Week Editor who checks the articles and once compiled, sends them to the PSI office for a final check.
The PSI office when sends the articles with publishing dates for the following week into Christian Today who also checks them, and proceeds to publish them the following week as per the schedule.
Back room
There many people in the back room (as it were) to make all this happen. There is a “new young writer” coordinator who sends the new prospective young writer the “info pack” and until the new prospective young writers replies they are on the same page, they do not start in the program.
There is someone who uploads the article titles onto the PSI web page which acts as an data base – come archive - for all articles and all young writers, past and present. This is a vital resource. Many Christian publication editors -on-line and hard copy, refer to this data base for names and articles.
Our 'CARD' - Christian Article Registry Depository - site - serves the same purpose but in a more selective and concise manner.
Then there are panellists for each of the groups and a statistician – the panellists give a mark for the articles which are collated by the statistician. This is such a mammoth undertaking, there are people who collate the panellists sheets and who then send them on to the statistician in group form.
And many other helper tasks to ensure the entire project runs smoothly throughout the year, and not least the annual young writer conference, last year held on the Sunshine Coast and this year 2018 in Christchurch.
Christina Jones USA
Monday we start
Week 1 - the internationals are published from Monday 15 - 19 January and they comes from
England
West Indies
China
ambique
South Africa
Canada
USA
Philippines
The international young writers panellists, who mark their articles out of 10 points, are as last year -
Dr Vic Matthews
Rev Euan McDonald
Mr Daniel Stott
Dr Nathanael Yates
Ms Danielle Stott - 2014 Basil Sellers Award
Three of these five are former young writers which is a policy adopted two years ago to establish former young writers in vacancies as far as able.
2018 looks to be another fantastic year for the young writer program -
Young people in the ages 18-30 are welcome to make enquiry as there are spots available - timeout@bushorchestra.com or 0419 917 713
Stacy-Ann Smith West Indies
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at