Posted on November 26, 2018
by Catherine Austen
4 Comments
I posted a motivational blurb on the SCBWI Canada East website today, about slogging it through the last days of November’s novel-writing challenge. I have never actually made the NaNoWriMo journey, meaning I’ve never done a start-to-finish draft in the month of November. I’ve… Continue Reading “NaNoWriMo on the Slow Track”
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Category: writing, writing procesTags: books, Canadian writers, children's books, children's novels, creative process, discipline, fear, inspiration, motivation, nanowrimo, novels, orca book publishers, procrastination, revising, walking backward, word count, writers, writing, writing practice
Posted on October 1, 2018
by Catherine Austen
9 Comments
It’s the first day of Inktober. Illustrators know this. The rest of us might not — but we should, all of us. Because Inktober is awesome. And it’s for everyone. Inktober began in 2009, by artist Jake Parker, as a challenge to improve drawing skills… Continue Reading “Inktober for those afraid to Draw”
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Category: art, illustration, writingTags: creative process, daily practice, discipline, drawing, fear, illustrators, ink, inktober, learn to draw, october, picture books, procrastination, writing
Posted on August 10, 2018
by Catherine Austen
2 Comments
My tiny home office was featured in this week’s “Writing Spaces,” a regular blog post from The New Quarterly. This is a fabulous weekly feature from TNQ that offers a peek into the working spaces of each issue’s writers, along with inspiring anecdotes and… Continue Reading “Writing Spaces”
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Category: authors, litmags, short stories, writingTags: canadian literary journal, canadian literary magazines, Canadian writers, canlit, creative process, english literature, fiction, home office, inspiration, lit mags, literary fiction, literary journal, literary journals, literary magazine, literary magazines, literary short fiction, literature, litmag, office space, offices, publishing, reading, revising, sulphur mountain, the new quarterly, tnq, workspace, writers, writing, writing space
Posted on March 30, 2018
by Catherine Austen
1 Comment
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… Continue Reading “Immersed in Student Writing”
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Category: author talks, books, children's books, contests, public speaking, school visits, writing, young writersTags: author talks, author visits, awesome authors, bishop's university, books, Canadian writers, children's books, children's novels, Contests, creative process, english literature, Friends of the Ottawa Public Library, history of children's literature, Ottawa Public Library, public speaking, reading, school visits, symmes d'arcy, walking backward, writers, writing, writing contests, writing workshops
I always look forward to my regional SCBWI conference. This year it’s especially exciting because I’ll be giving a workshop myself. My topic: revision. I used to dread revisions. I loved drafting; I loved polishing; but I loathed the grunt work in between the… Continue Reading “The Art of Story: SCBWI Canada East Conference”
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Category: author talks, authors, children's books, What's New, writing, writing conferenceTags: art of story, author visits, books, Canadian writers, children's books, children's literature, creative process, critiques, kidlit, novel revision, ottawa, publishing, revising, revision, scbwi, scbwi canada east, writers, writers conference, writing, writing conference, writing workshops