Tag: inspiration

MASC Young Authors and Illustrators Festival 2019

Posted on March 29, 2019 by Catherine Austen

I’m ready for the MASC Young Authors and Illustrators Festival taking place in Ottawa April 9-11. I’ll be leading workshops with keen young writers coming to town from elementary schools across eastern Ontario and western Quebec. This annual event draws hosting authors and illustrators from… Continue Reading “MASC Young Authors and Illustrators Festival 2019”

Category: author talks, authors, children's books, illustration, What's New, writing, writing conference, writing workshops, young writersTags: author visits, books, britt wilson, canadian museum of aviation, Canadian writers, canlit, cary fagan, children's books, children's novels, creative process, david a robertson, illustrations, inspiration, karen krossing, MASC, MASC Young Authors and Young Illustrators Festival, novels, soyeon kim, writers, writing, writing workshops, youth art, youth writing

Young Writers Workshop: Setting Exercise

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Catherine Austen

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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.

Category: author talks, contests, friday form, school visits, writing, writing proces, writing workshops, young writersTags: author visits, awesome authors, Contests, creative process, creative writing, FOPLA, inspiration, Ottawa Public Library, setting, setting exercise, short fiction, short stories, writers, writing, writing contests, writing workshops, youth writing, youth writing contest

NaNoWriMo on the Slow Track

Posted on November 26, 2018 by Catherine Austen

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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”

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

Writing Spaces

Posted on August 10, 2018 by Catherine Austen

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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”

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

Make a WISH

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Catherine Austen

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For the second week in a row, I met some friends on Friday morning for an hour of silent writing in a local tea house. I call it a Write in Silence Hour, aka a WISH. Okay, yeah, people have been doing this for… Continue Reading “Make a WISH”