Novelist David Lee Stone explores the enthusiasm he found amongst Bulgarian teenagers

I have just returned from Bulgaria, where I was a guest speaker at the British Council’s teenage literature event in Sofia. The event was an incredible experience in many ways; it also showed me that, despite the diversity of our two cultures, those teenagers who love creative self-expression are pretty much the same everywhere.

To start with, I was shocked by the British Council’s motivation for the event. Bulgarian publishers, my contact explained, don’t believe that young authors have anything to say. This attitude is disastrous, because it leads the country’s teenage population to believe that they have no voice in their own country, and that pursuing careers in the creative arts is therefore pointless. Yet, despite all this, they still have the drive and the determination to write. The British Council decided to reward that drive and determination by securing exactly the kind of audience who should be listening to them.

And so the event was conceived … and the invitations were sent out.

Apart from myself and fellow UK author Nicola Morgan, the British Council had also solicited the attendance of Alek Popov, popular local author and editor of Sofia’s only magazine for new writers, as well as a generous selection of Bulgarian publishers, journalists and writers … so finally the course students would get the audience they so rightly deserved! Well, deserve it they did, I can honestly say that I have rarely met with young people possessed of such an incredible wealth of talent and enthusiasm. They were all smart, articulate and confident, yet they displayed none of the arrogance that you might expect to accompany such characteristics. Suddenly, I found myself greatly intrigued as to what their thoughts and arguments would be on the subject of teenage literature. I wasn’t disappointed.

The three-day programme basically consisted of a number of readings and workshops set around a central day of panel and audience discussion. I was somewhat daunted upon my arrival at the venue, and I immediately expressed extreme doubts about whether the event would attract even half the capacity of the room. I mean, aside from the Bulgarian literary crowd, the core audience was supposed to be comprised of teenagers … and teenagers didn’t attend these sorts of things in their free time, did they? I was to be proved wrong; not only did the event program completely fill the hall, but also many latecomers (including, amusingly, some publishers) were forced to stand.

The main group of students, whom I met upon my arrival had divided into teams ready for the main event. I talked to each of them in turn as I needed to be ‘prepped’ as to the feel and direction of their arguments, which were as diverse as the teenagers themselves. For my part, I was supposed to be speaking in two of the main topics, including 'Lord of the Teens', a section about popular books for teenagers, and 'Yes, They Do Write', a discussion about teenagers as authors.

As anticipated, the event turned out not only to be an enjoyable and relaxed discussion of opinions but also a brilliant showcase for the talent so neglected by Bulgarian media publishers. One by one, the teenagers arranged their arguments, covering such subjects as the ‘tyranny’ and ‘oppression’ of the school curriculum, the decline of standards in literary criticism, and the internet (and whether it is the way forward for new writing or just a nicely-packaged diversion with no serious international support). They certainly won over their doubters as, by the close of the event, even the publishers and journalists were beaming with a mixture of astonishment and delight at the sheer depth of the discussions. It would be fair to say that anyone who anticipated the event as a banal ‘Harry Potter versus Lord of the Rings’ day soon realised that they had been labouring under a misapprehension.

Nicola Morgan’s workshop added immeasurably to the event. She set the group a creative writing challenge, which saw them given a mystery ‘box’ and demanded that they explain why its contents were so special to them. The creative results, which ran from unusual keepsakes with sentimental histories to variants on the Pandora story, were virtually cheered for their inventiveness … and I for one didn’t fancy following them onto the platform for my own reading! Still, author readings would prove to be a pivotal part of the event, especially for Nicola Morgan, who looked on in shock as a girl fainted during the reading of a disturbing passage from her teenage novel ‘Fleshmarket’. 'Oh, it wasn’t your words', she was later told, 'the young lady in question has very low blood pressure'. Nicola, undaunted, vouched to me that such an event had happened before.

The final day was one comprised of public readings from the teenagers’ own works, which ranged from commentary essays to short stories, and from mood pieces to poetry. Again, the quality of the work was outstanding and came in many forms, including a rather dynamic pair who performed their own scripted piece to rapturous laughter and applause.

In conclusion, the teenage literature event was a staggering success. It was interesting to see how much affection and respect the teenagers showed for Leah Davcheva and her associates at the British Council, not merely, I suspect, for all the hard work they had put in to the programme, but for their efforts in providing the group with a chance to be heard in an arena full of so many publishers, journalists, critics and, crucially, like-minded readers and writers. I, for one, certainly learned a lot about the power of Bulgarian creative-expression.