Calling all kid writers - new contests are now up on the RIO website. Also, for your writing pleasure, there is also a new place to submit your work. AND for those not totally impressed yet - there are youth writers' retreats, camps and classes posted too. Check it all out in your RIO Resources.

Drink the Wild Air - youth writing retreat
Come join us at the WordsWorth Winter Retreat! March 1-3 at Camp Chief Hector.  Why there, you ask? “Nature has no outline. Imagination has” William Blake
March 1-3 we’re heading back to the mountains for another Creative Writing Re-treat and of course, we hope you’ll be there!  But why do we keep bringing our writing to the outdoors?William Carlos Williams said things close to the nose aren’t proper subjects.  Not all writing can be direct self-expression.  Looking inward can keep poets and writ-ers from looking outward.  And so we’re taking you outdoors this time to Camp Chief Hector to partner with the outdoor staff to notice evocative new images and to have fresh adventure. And then we’ll  create time to take these new images and experiences
...and collaborate them with language.  So even if you already have a relationship with
the natural world, this one will be new.The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it novelist Elizabeth Brown observed. 
So join us and DRINK THE WILD AIR March 1 – 3, 2013 at Camp Chief Hector YMCA in Kananaskis, Alberta. Thaw your brainfreeze with warm words and we hope you will find an unexpected connection between the outdoors and words.
To register or click here: http://drinkthewildair2013.eventbrite.ca/
We will be outdoors, indoors writing, up late writing under the stars, sleeping late -ish.  There will be campfire, music, parlour games, Exquisite Corpse Games...the fun will never end.
Oh, yes it will. On Sunday just after lunch.  But in true Words-worth fashion, we will pack the fun in.  We’re even offering a bus out on the Friday night.

Happy New Lilly! Yes, RIO has named yet another year. Why? To prevent the world ending of course. It's what we do. Well . . . that and writing really weird stuff, shooting insane commercials, and making strange movies. We're those people. You know, the one's your mother warned you about. Writers. So if you're one of those people too, and you're under eighteen years old, come and join the party. Just go to our home page for more info.