I recently approached an authority in literary preservation and a youth publication to devise ways of presenting classical and contemporary writing to young writers: a way to fuse the two worlds. The young writers (and readers) I meant to attract were those genuinely uninterested in Lindsay Lohan and "Which [insert forgettable teen drama show title here] It Girl Are YOU?" quizzes. Not to mention the increasing tendency of teen and youth publications to resemble extensive advertorials. While some attempts are noble, many publications fall short of treating their readers like people who have any sense of literary history or any interest in the legacies of past literary geniuses. In turn, there is no forum for the kind of writing this brand of young person is capable of producing.
Needless to say, neither of the places I approached seemed interested in admitting that there existed a population of youth who remained uninterested in huge magenta and cyan fonts and The Simpson Sisters.