I’ll be giving a writing workshop tomorrow at the Carlingwood Library to help kids aged 9-12 prepare their stories for the Ottawa Public Library’s Awesome Authors Contest. We’ll do two story-building exercises: one on Character, and one on Setting. For those who can’t be there, here is my Setting handout, with a short version of… Continue reading Young Writers Workshop: Setting Exercise
This Tuesday, I had the pleasure of calling the names of twelve young writers whose short fiction won places in the Ottawa Public Library's Awesome Authors Contest. What a pleasure to be one of this year's judges and to read excerpts from the fantastic mix of winning stories: humour, drama, sci-fi, horror, and sad, sad… Continue reading Immersed in Student Writing
It was a pleasure to be part of the 29th annual Vancouver Island Children's Book Festival this year. I met hundreds of young readers at schools and libraries in the Nanaimo area during a week-long author tour that culminated in BookFest on May 2nd: a day-long celebration of children's literature in which I joined with ten other authors… Continue reading Thank you, BookFest!
Thank you to the 150 students from grades 4-8 who participated in my writing workshops this week at the MASC Young Authors and Illustrators Conference in Ottawa. What a blast! I was so inspired by your stories, your enthusiasm, and your willingness to share. Even the boring stories were entertaining. (I'm not name-calling. We wrote badly on… Continue reading Wonderful Workshops
I went to Laurentian Regional High School yesterday and spoke with Secondary I and II (Grade 7 and 8) students who'd been reading my novel, All Good Children, in class. The students were great audiences: attentive, informed and enthusiastic. They sent me a long list of questions in advance of my visit, and I tried to incorporate my… Continue reading What are you Writing Now?
Catherine Austen 