Our story
A writing school that started with six kids and a small office
Hunter Valley Writers has been teaching kids to write since 2019. We're at Limeburners Creek, and our writers come from all over Australia.
Karen Hughes started Hunter Valley Writers in 2019 with a small office in East Maitland and a handful of kids who wanted to write stories.
Today we run weekly classes on Zoom, work with whole school classes, and publish an anthology of student writing every year. Some of our writers have gone on to publish books of their own.
The classes are capped at twelve. Karen knows every child's name and loves reading their stories.
It starts with a tree change
Karen moved to the Hunter Valley in 2007 with her husband Andrew and their four children, after almost ten years of practising law in Canberra. In November 2014 she published Emerald Child, the first book in her Kalika Magic series, and every year after that a new book followed.
She began visiting schools around the Hunter to talk about the books. During those visits, she encouraged the kids to write their own stories, and it was so much fun that some of the schools asked her to stay for the whole term.
The kids wanted more, so she started running weekly workshops from a small office in East Maitland.
When the Covid lockdowns closed the office, Karen rebuilt the whole thing on Zoom. That's where Young Authors Club and the Advanced Writers group came from, and it's why a child in Perth or Darwin can now sit in the same small group as a child down the road.
Hunter Valley Writers grew rapidly after everything opened up again, and in time moved into a studio on High Street with possums in the roof and a secret garden. Now, after five magical years, Karen has closed the studio and moved to Limeburners Creek, where she continues to Zoom every week with kids from all over Australia.
Sharing the magic of words
Dr Karen Hughes is the author of the Kalika Magic series, five fantasy adventures for readers aged 8 to 14 about courage, friendship, and an ancient magic tied to the land.
She grew up on a cattle station on the Liverpool Plains, climbing trees, building cubby houses beside the creek and reading Narnia books. Her primary school had only six pupils. At twelve she was packed off to boarding school.
She was a lawyer in Canberra for almost ten years, but has now thankfully recovered. She's currently working on a speculative novel for adults.
PhD English · BA (Asian Studies) · Bachelor of Laws · Grad. Dip. Legal Practice · Adv. Dip. Classical Herbal Medicine · Children's Book Council of Australia · Australian Society of Authors · International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts · Speculative Literature Foundation USA · Managing Editor of Verity La Journal · Owner of Ironbark Retreat · Founder and Director of Hunter Valley Writers
Why we bother
Kids who write regularly get better at spelling, grammar and handwriting. Parents notice that first, but it's not the interesting part.
The interesting part starts with a child asking what if. What if the creek could talk? What if the dragon is lonely? This is where the work starts, and the work is what changes them. To put a character on the page you have to figure out what they want, what's in their way, and why they do the maddening things they do. You can't write a person you haven't thought about. That's empathy, practised on paper. And because a story is a problem with no formula, every draft demands an original answer. That's creative thinking, and it's the whole point of the hour.
Then there's the machine in the room. A chatbot can hand your child a story in four seconds. What it can't do is wonder for them. A 2025 MIT Media Lab study found that essay writers using ChatGPT showed the weakest brain connectivity of three groups tested, and many couldn't quote their own work back afterwards. It's a preprint, and it studied adults, but it matches what teachers have been saying for two years.
Meanwhile creative thinking is now ranked fourth worldwide among the skills employers want, and it will probably be even more important in the future. What a machine makes in four seconds is getting cheaper. Original thinking is getting more valuable.
A child who writes their own story knows that people think differently, and they're gradually working out how and why. None of that can be handed to a machine.
It might not show up on a report card, but it'll show up in how they relate to their friends and how they talk to you.
Source: MIT Media Lab, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task (2025).
A real book, every year
Every term, each child's story goes into an anthology they can hold. Our first was Dragons, Zombies and Skateboards in 2021. Since then there's been:
- Adventure Unlocked
- Reach for the Stars
- Out of this World
- Evolution
A few of our writers haven't stopped there. Keira Gurney, James Michell, Lillian Forbes and Archer Gibbs have each published a book of their own.
Whole classes, whole terms
We run full-term programs for schools and community groups with at least ten participants. Weekly one-hour sessions on Zoom, and an anthology of student writing at the end of it.
We also do half-day and full-day workshops, and we're happy to work around a school timetable.
Come and have a look
Three free lessons, sent to your inbox. A video from Karen, the idea behind the story, and a challenge to take on. No cost, no catch.
Try three free lessons See our weekly classes