A User’s Guide to a Pandemic was an idea that started during the national lockdown in 2020. The idea was simple – that young people needed to write about this.

Four writing centres for young people across the country joined together – Story Factory (NSW – that’s us!), 100 Story Building (Melbourne), The Story Island Project (Tasmania) and StoryBoard (Byron Bay) – and created A User’s Guide to a Pandemic, a writing project that amplified the voices of young people during the uncertainty and disconnection of the pandemic.

Students wrote in their own time or participated in online workshops, and created pieces of writing that investigated the challenges, the unexpected joys, the boredom, worries and hopes of the pandemic.

What they’ve created is truly extraordinary. A book written entirely by Australian young people during the weirdest year of their lives. It’s full of joy, wisdom, imagination and truth – just like them.

You can buy a beautiful printed copy of this treasure-trove of writing in the Story Factory bookshop.

PS Did we say written entirely? Well, almost. We made an exception for the Introduction. Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief, an international bestseller for over a decade) did the honours. What a legend. Check it out through the link above!

PPS While every student who submitted work was published in the book, not every single thing that they wrote made it in. BUT, it’s all way too good for us not to share, so we’ve compiled every single thing that was submitted at the link below.