“No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art.” –T.S. Eliot

Frodo’s Notebook is the only magazine situated right where the up and coming generation of literary figures encounters each other and the established literary world. We’re unique; we stand out, and for good reason:

We take art and writing by teenagers seriously. Thirteen to nineteen year-olds around the world are producing stunning material—original art and literature, as well as criticism of the same— and we feature the very best of it in our publication.

In addition to showcasing young writers before a large international audience, we connect teens interested in literature and art with input and wisdom from adults already in the established literary scene, including professional writers, publishers, college professors, and our own editors.

Frodo's Notebook is an independent magazine offered free of charge (including complete archives) to all readers. We are not associated with or responsible to any institution, educational or otherwise, but we wholeheartedly support the mission and vision of the Words Work Network, of which we are a member publication.

Our editors are introduced in our masthead, and we have a separate website to explain how Frodo’s Notebook is published by its own nonprofit corporation.

As for the name, it’s an allusion to the hobbit protagonist of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings epic, who is sent on a long and difficult journey by no choice of his own. "I wish none of this had ever happened," he remarks a short way into the deeply metaphorical journey. What if the young Frodo had carried a notebook with him, writing along the way? We'll never know, but on this side of the metaphor we can know the contents of such a notebook, a journal collectively written by the people Frodo represents as they make their way through one of the rockiest and least predictable stretches of the journey: adolescence. The idea of this journal is achieved in Frodo's Notebook. Gandalf-like wisdom (from adult literary figures) is offered as a healthy supplement.

Daniel Klotz, our editor in chief, started Frodo’s Notebook as a high school sophomore in 1998. Until December 2000 we considered the site an ever-growing, book-like anthology of poetry, essays, and experimental writing by teens. Then, due to an increasing number of submissions, we moved to a quarterly format with complete and accessible archives. In January 2002 we joined the Words Work Network, which exists “to reinvent and restore to prominence the art of writing in American high schools,” under the watch of figures like former U.S. poets laureate Robert Pinsky and Billy Collins. At this time we enlarged the editorial board, expanded the editorial comment section, and added fiction as a category alongside poetry and essays. We also began publishing foreign poetry in translation. In 2003 Frodo’s Notebook was incorporated as a nonprofit and we began both building an editorial advisory board and fundraising toward an annual budget.