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Eighteen-year-old Stephanie Yun was recently named Oakland’s first youth poet laureate after winning a competition at the Flor y Canto Festival in San Francisco. The competition was organized by the Oakland Public Library in partnership with Youth Speaks, a nonprofit organization focused on spoken word performance and education.
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Some of the best stories and essays revolve around the author's hometown. Spend fifteen minutes freewriting about the town or city in which you grew up. Focus on the people, the places, the landscape, and the memories surrounding them. Where was your favorite place to eat? Who were the most interesting characters? What did you do with your family and friends? What did the school look like? Where did you go when you wanted to run away?
