I was invited to give a talk for CANSCAIP, the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers. On September 10, I spoke about my recent exploration into the art of screenwriting and how it applies to writing a novel. If you’re interested in screenwriting, two excellent books are Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting and Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting.
Do you want to write for children or teens? Join me for a writing workshop on September 25, 2008, at Centennial College to learn how to generate ideas, develop believable characters, understand genres, edit your writing, and market and promote your work.
I just finished two awesome weeks of teaching WordPlayer writing workshops at Pegasus Studios Arts Camp in Toronto. Together we wrote and shared poems, created characters using masks, and invented stories about buried treasure. The kids and teens were super enthusiastic when we created our own imaginary worlds then wrote stories about them. They drew maps of their worlds, imagined characters, then wrote pages of fabulous material. Thanks to all for sharing your writing with me.
This July, I’ll be leading WordPlayers writing workshops for children and teens at the Pegasus Studios Arts Camp. If you like writing poems or stories, come play with words using masks, story dice, photos, character games, and more. For more information, go to Pegasus Studios.
In February 2008, teen writers joined me at the York Woods library in Toronto for a prose writing workshop. Participants expressed themselves through writing using a variety of stimulating activities designed to teach technique.
On October 20, 2007, I enjoyed a writing workshop with enthusiastic teen writers at the Young Voices Writers Conference. The event was held at the North York Central Library in Toronto. In my workshop, I focussed on how to revise a work of fiction, demonstrating my own revision process then discussing specific ways to polish prose with writing exercises to show technique.