YA Unfinished StoryBox Project

Established Young Adult Authors writing together with middle and high school students across the country.


What is The StoryBox Project?

An international arts and literacy initiative, the StoryBox Project promotes the art of sharing stories and storytelling. Started by Dr. Kevin Cordi, professional storyteller and educator, the StoryBox Project was first developed in 1995. It has elicited stories from thousands of people. The YA UnfinishedStoryBox will travel across the globe gathering more stories and/or poems as it goes, and will return to the host one year later.

Everywhere the StoryBox travels, a “Story Ambassador” (community organizer, teacher, parent…) organizes events to bring communities to share their stories. Writers young and old are provided a place to add their stories, from fictional epics to real life vignettes, stories can take any form: poems, drawings, paintings, photographs, CDs, newspaper clippings, MP3 files, and more. I have launched a StoryBox every other year since 1995. Each person freely provides his or her “story”

to be used in classrooms, prisons, festivals, and community centers.

These are used for their own StoryBox Unveiling!

What is the YA (“Unfinished”) StoryBox Project?

We are making preparations to launch a new StoryBox. We have placed a call to YA authors/poets to send an unfinished story or longer poem that will travel for one year and return to the hosting site. Over 30 established authors have answered the call. There is still time to submit. We are accepting submissions until July 24 due to the expanding interest.


Each StoryBox will contain:

A special package that provides writer’s brief biographies and their unfinished stories/poems. Each package will also include a photo of the writer. So kindly send us a recent photo along with your submission. On the outside of the StoryBox, the authors’ pictures will be attached. As students “finish” your work, they too will have their faces attached to the StoryBox so that a beautiful array of faces will serve as an enticing invitation to open the YA Unfinished StoryBox.

Our first objective is to encourage these contributors to add their own endings to your stories/poems.

What do we need from the authors/poets?

We would love to include you in this project. We ask that you provide us with an unfinished YA story or longer poem of three to five pages or more. Please include enough of the work so that students can sense a direction in the narrative.

YA stories have ranged from 1 to 30 pages with an average of 4-5 pages.

Depending upon the responses, we hope to seek a possible publisher once the work returns. We want to share the wonder spun from your unfinished stories/poems. We are also encouraging teachers to speak to the value of YA reading and writing in the classroom via an article, blog, and more. We ask that you provide one-time permission to use your story/poem. Your email response will serve as your permission. Be assured that you will keep all other rights to your work. You are simply providing rights to us (and the students) to use it for the expressed purposes.


The StoryBox Project has been my labor of love since 1995. At this time we can’t offer compensation. Our aim is to give back to young people by elevating YA stories and poetry in classrooms all over the country and the world. We hope you will give serious consideration to this global sharing experience.

“Together we make a difference with poetry and stories.”

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact Kevin at cell 559-213-0161, or email me at kcteller@sbcglobal.net