OLE Nepal has started an ambitious project to create content relevant to Young Adult (YA) in Nepali literature. Over the span of two years, we spent collecting and archiving work of Nepali literature, and we realized that there was a real dearth of literary materials for YAs between the ages of eleven and eighteen. After a number of discussions on this topic, E-Pustakalaya's Advisory Panel met on November 30, 2010, at the OLE Nepal office to plan the content creation process to meet the literary needs of teenagers in Nepal.

The panel decided that we need to better understand the social and psychological issues relevant to Nepali youth before starting the content creation process. OLE Nepal will be organizing a day-long seminar on December 22, 2010, at the Russian Culture Centre to discuss the areas that should be addressed by this project. With our target audience narrowed down to students who have just finished their School Leaving Certificate exams (grade 10), we hope that the literary materials that will eventually be produced will address key social issues regarding this challenging period in a teen's life.

The seminar will be attended by authors, illustrators, teachers, authors, and students. Two papers, one on the importance of YA literature in Nepal and another one on current styles and popular techniques used in YA literature around the world, will be presented by Prof. Churamani Bandhu and Mr. Vinaya Kasajoo, respectively. After the paper presentations, participating teachers and students will discuss their real-life problems while dealing with or being an adolescent. We believe this preliminary seminar will provide the necessary literary spark and base to aspiring authors present at the seminar. They will then be able to bring these ideas with them to the writer’s workshops conducted at a future date.