Agra: Scores of teenage authors with creative spark joined the fortnight long grooming camp supervised by senior mentors, Neelam Mehrotra, Poorna Verma, Namita Taluqdar, Roli Sinha, Arpita Chatterjea, Archita Dutta who chiselled and polished their writing skills.

 The last three days, Hemant with his wife Ruchira Mittal guided the young writers and gave useful tips.

The workshop was organised by business-woman Dr. Ranjana Bansal.

The initiative came as a positive fallout of the Taj Literature Festival held here, leading to the formation of Young Writers of Agra.

Hemant Kumar said the nine selected young writers, seven girls, two boys, will continue to be under his tutelage, and would be helped to hone their skills further. He said the writing skills could not be passed on to them in a day or two, but they need to practice hard on a regular basis. 'Also these kids must inculcate a passion for reading.'

Hemant said all the nine selected from over 60, were talented young writers full of creative energy and powerful expression. The selected ones are Kuhu Goyal, Yusura, Priyanshi, Aniruddha, Yashi, Amrita, Subundhu, Bhavya and Kuhoo Srivastav, all in their teens.

Talking to many of the young writers, it was amply clear that thier chief inspiration was Chetan Bhagat and they all want to emulate him.