Picture it: Saturday, 6/27/09, at YFT. Some of the center’s most talented poets, writers, and visual artists gathered in the big meeting room to assemble the second annual YouthFirst Texas literary anthology, Queer Subtext. Kenny Schreiber proposed the catchy title while V. Rodriguez designed the cover; Tony Conway drew the back cover illustration. Other youth featured in the anthology are Wajid Aldomour, “G.C.,” Zack Duffer, Kristin Lane (a.k.a “ Squee”), Alex Langley, Jesus Montelongo, Scotty Moriarty, Giancarlo Mossi, Essie Romanik, charley scarborough, A. Senini, and Shawn Trimm. Additionally, Frankyee Popovich and Steven Richmond dropped by to lend a hand.

Ask anyone who attends the bi-monthly YFT open-mic, and they will surely say that an anthology is a logical progression because the youths’ writing is so strong—so fiercely passionate, so wildly varied—that it would be a shame not to preserve it in a handy, easily accessible form. Of course, with Internet outlets, such as Facebook, sending art to a worldwide audience is never more than a click away. Even so, seeing your work reproduced in book form brings a tremendous thrill. Furthermore, the anthology functions not only as creative forum, it creates camaraderie and invites a sense of accomplishment because the book belongs to everybody as everybody works together to make it happen. The youth walk out of the center with a book they actually make themselves. Zack Duffer, for one, couldn’t help but exclaim how great it felt just to hold it in his hands.

Here’s how it works: The number of participants determines the number of books. For example, 15 contributors equal a minimum of 15 books. To keep the volume to a manageable size, each participant may  fill up to three pages with poetry, prose, or visual art. The youth are responsible for ensuring they have enough copies of their own material to fill the required number of books. When everyone convenes for the party, each contributor’s pages are lined up on a long table, and then the books are assembled one at a time using the center’s ring-binding device.

Would it be easier if all participants submitted their texts electronically, so the whole thing could be turned into a giant pdf to be printed and assembled elsewhere? Perhaps, but then the sense of community that develops when everyone pitches in and works toward a common goal would be lost. Also, there would be one less reason to mingle and to munch on pizza, wings, popcorn, and other snacks on a Saturday night. Even so, to take the anthology to the next level, a pdf version is in the works in order to send Queer Subtext out into the community as a fund-raising tool. After all, the youth collectively have a powerful voice that deserves to be heard beyond the center’s walls.

Btw, special thanks to volunteer Doug Bedner for operating that unwieldy binding contraption—and to volunteers Sherry Hooten, Ming Shui, and Becky Senini for their expert assistance as well.