(a) The position of California Youth Poet Laureate is hereby established.

(b) The California Youth Poet Laureate shall be appointed by the Governor from a list of three nominees 13 to 19 years of age, inclusive, provided by the Arts Council garnered through the following process:

(1) The council shall establish a panel of three literary experts that may include any of the following:

(A) Literature professors and teachers, including professional poets teaching in such programs as California Poets in the Schools and other arts in schools programs.

(B) Public and private arts organizations that have a significant literary component.

(C) Professional poets and city youth poet laureates.

(D) Boards and directors of literary organizations.

(E) Literary critics.

(F) Others deemed by the director to have expertise in contemporary American poetry.

(2) (A) The panel shall solicit nominations from a broad array of literary sources and individuals, including, but not limited to, all of the following:

(i) High school, university, and college literature departments.

(ii) Literary organizations, societies, and centers.

(iii) Poetry book publishers and poetry editors.

(iv) Directors of poetry reading series.

(v) Independent book sellers specializing in poetry.

(vi) Community centers.

(vii) Local arts agencies.

(B) The council shall make every effort to ensure that information regarding the solicitation of nominations is broadly distributed.

(3) The council may establish other rules and regulations regarding the nomination process and expend funds for those purposes.

(c) Each nominee for California Youth Poet Laureate submitted by the Arts Council to the Governor shall reside in California at the time of the submission of the application and reside in California during their term as California Youth Poet Laureate.

(d) Each nominee for California Youth Poet Laureate submitted by the Arts Council to the Governor shall be 13 to 19 years of age, inclusive, at the time of the application submission deadline.

(e) A youth poet laureate appointed pursuant to this section shall serve for a term of two years, and may not serve more than one term.

(f) Upon appropriation of funds by the Legislature for the purposes of this chapter, the Arts Council shall provide an annual stipend of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) to the California Youth Poet Laureate and shall pay the travel expenses of the California Youth Poet Laureate incurred in the course of attending readings and meetings. Additionally, the council may make available other funds for activities that the council and the California Youth Poet Laureate mutually agree to undertake, including, but not limited to, the lease of facilities for readings and the acquiring of insurance therefor, and other similar activities.

(g) The California Youth Poet Laureate shall, as a condition of the appointment, assume the following minimum responsibilities:

(1) Provide a minimum of six public readings during their two-year term endeavoring to ensure that people in all geographic regions of the state have reasonable access to at least one reading during the course of the term.

(2) Undertake a specific project that shall last through the term, agreed to by the California Youth Poet Laureate and the council, the goal of which will be to bring the poetic arts to Californians and to California students who might otherwise have little opportunity to be exposed to poetry. The California Youth Poet Laureate may, and is encouraged to, coordinate the project with any similar project being undertaken by the California Poet Laureate.

(3) Any other reasonable activities as agreed to mutually by the California Youth Poet Laureate and the council.

(h) All contracts entered into by the California Youth Poet Laureate pursuant to this chapter are not subject to Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 6750) of Part 3 of Division 11 of the Family Code.

(Added by Stats. 2019, Ch. 156, Sec. 1. (SB 748) Effective January 1, 2020.)