Revise Your Picture Book Manuscripts: A Faculty-led, Writer-Centered Critique Group
Dates: Wednesdays March 26 – May 21, 2025 Time: 7:30 – 8:50 PM EST Where: Online
Do you have picture book manuscripts that you’d like to revise with a small, committed group of writers dedicated to helping you produce your best work? Join award-winning author and MFA-level instructor Karen Krossing for this in-depth, hands-on, nine-week workshop limited to eight participants. You’ll use your own manuscripts to explore picture-book craft/revision, you’ll discuss craft elements you can apply to your own manuscripts, and you’ll participate in weekly online discussions that dive into picture book craft topics.
Our nine weeks together include:
An initial session on learning how to participate in a writer-centered critique group—one that centers on each writer’s needs and creates a safe, nurturing feedback experience. (This session is required for participation.)
Eight 80-minute workshop sessions facilitated by Karen Krossing where writers will offer and receive targeted, constructive feedback that inspires revisions and helps you meet your writing goals.
Two manuscript critiques per participant during the workshop sessions, including feedback from Karen.
Learning about picture book craft from Karen and one another’s creative efforts and insights.
Eight weekly online conversation prompts about picture book craft in a separate, online digital learning space exclusive to the group.
You will complete the workshop with:
Having built a community of fellow picture book writers.
The revision tools and craft knowledge to revise your own manuscripts as well as your peers’.
Meaningful ways to workshop and evaluate picture book stories.
Two critiques of your picture book manuscripts.
The tools needed to form your own writer-centered critique group or enhance your existing group.
This workshop is for you if:
You seek targeted, constructive, inspirational feedback on your picture book manuscripts.
You want to expand your understanding of picture book craft with a focus on revision.
You want to co-create a safe, nurturing feedback experience for all levels of writers.
You are seeking a writer-centered critique group or the tools and insight to enhance your existing critique group.
Writing Groups that Work: Give and Receive Feedback that Supports the Writer
Date/Time: Thursday, June 6, 2024, 7:00–8:30 PM (EDT) Cost: $30 US Delivery: Online with session recorded for later viewing
Get the scoop on writing groups that work. In fact, why not invite your writing group (or writing partners) to join?
A well-run writing group can be a training ground for collective growth, support, and motivation to write. But some traditional groups can be unintentionally off-base, judgmental, and even harmful. In this 90-minute session, you’ll explore how to set up a writing group that centers on each writer’s needs, including creating a discovery experience to explore a project – where it came from, where it’s at now, and where the writer is inspired to take it next.
This course will cover:
how to form your ideal writing group, including where to find members and how to set it up for success.
how a writing group can foster inclusion and support for a diverse range of experiences.
how to prepare for feedback on your writing, including the value of an artist statement to introduce a piece of writing.
how responder(s) can prepare for a feedback session.
how a group can co-create a safe, nurturing feedback experience.
the roles of the responder(s) and writer during feedback.
what to do with the feedback you receive on your writing (and when to set it aside).
This workshop is for any writer or writing group seeking ways to offer and receive targeted, constructive feedback that inspires revisions and meets writing goals.
To register, go to the Whale Rock website. While you’re there, please also check out their many wonderful offerings for new, emerging, and established writers for children and youth. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Whale Rock newsletter!
Ever since I first heard Erin Nuttall read from her works-in-progress during our time together at the Vermont College of Fine Art’s Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program, I was a fan. She is a writer to watch, and I’m sure we’ll be reading her middle-grade and young-adult novels in the future. Thanks to Erin for interviewing me about side-writing on KidLit Craft – a terrific blog you’ll want to explore. You can check out Erin’s thoughts on side-writing in her inaugural post on KidLit Craft, and stayed tuned for more side-writing exercises on the blog all month.
In a virtual meeting for CANSCAIP Members and Friends across Canada, I’ll be speaking with panelists S.K. Ali and Nadia Hohn as well as moderator Glen Huser about our faculty and student experiences in writing programs and schools.
Have you considered a degree in creative writing? What degrees are out there? What is the workload? What can you gain? And – is it worth the money?
Date and Time: March 10, 7 p.m. ET Guests are welcome, and can contact office@canscaip.org to request the Zoom link.
Our world has been going through extraordinary changes, and so have we as writers. Who are you now? What stories are currently simmering within you, waiting to be told?
In this hands-on workshop, I’ll explore how to tap into ourselves and our stories through the practice of side-writing, which refers to stepping away from the story on the page to explore the raw heart of it through creative exercises. You’ll explore how side-writing can help us to write true to ourselves, plumb the emotional depths of our characters to better connect to readers, and spark joy and play in our writing.
UPDATE: Thank you to the organizers of the SCBWI Canada East Art of Story Conference, who have wisely decided to cancel it due to covid-19. I hope to be back as a speaker at a later event. In the meantime, they’re hoping to host online workshops and distance critiques so stayed tuned!
I’m thrilled and honoured to be included as faculty at the upcoming SCBWI Canada East Art of Story Conference. This is an intimate and craft-based conference focused on writing and illustrating for children and teens. I hope you’ll be able to join us.
Date: April 24 to 26, 2020 Place: Albert at Bay Suite Hotel, Ottawa
You can check out all the faculty and workshops. My talk will be based on my critical thesis and grad lecture I completed during my MFA in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I’m excited to be able to share it with a wider audience.
How To Build Character Cultural Literacy To reflect the full and varied reality of human experience, all writers need to respectfully and thoughtfully depict secondary characters with a range of cultural beliefs. Even when our protagonists largely mirror us, can we say the same for all their friends?
Each character we create exists within a global village and within a particular nation, neighbourhood, social class, ability level as well as an ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, family, and peer group—each with its own distinct culture. Awareness of our characters’ culture beliefs will deepen their presence on the page.
Using insights from contemporary cultural anthropologists, I’ll introduce tools we can use to identify our characters’ deep-level cultural beliefs, offering insights into their motivations and story arcs. I’ll focus on family culture since that’s where we first learn and express our beliefs, although these tools can be applied to other cultural groups. We’ll also compare our own cultural beliefs to our characters’ to discuss the importance of respecting #OwnVoices, writing within our cultural elements, and avoiding bias through omission.
