School Visits
Karen shares her love of writing and her journey to becoming an author, from her country childhood to her time as a lawyer in the big city to her travels in magical lands. She works with school groups to improve their writing and tell their own magical stories, and then edits and compiles those stories in beautiful paperback books for students to share with parents and friends.
Contact us to for bookings, either live or on Zoom:
- full term program of weekly 1 hour writing sessions to produce a book of stories, or
- individual creative writing workshops on a theme of your choosing.
A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.
Madeleine L’Engle
Publish a Book
Karen will be available in person or on Zoom for a whole term, presenting weekly one hour sessions with the class. At the end of the term, we'll publish a book of stories to share with family and friends!
Week 1: Creating Crazy Characters
Everyone thinks and acts differently, and a good writer uses these differences to drive the story. Today we’ll brainstorm new characters, thinking about appearance, distinguishing features, favourite foods, favourite things to do, family background, etc. Then we’ll role play our characters for a fun news interview. Is your character a feisty redhead with a cannibal king father? Is she a clever spider who can write, with a best friend called Wilbur? How did she feel when she met Mr Tumnus under the lamp post?
Week 2: Building Magical Worlds
Another session of wonder and surprises, where anything is possible. First we’ll look at magical places like Narnia, Hogwarts and the 78-Story Treehouse, discussing what makes these places special. Then we’ll take our characters to a desert island, using our five senses to explore the island and finding much more than we expected.
Week 3: A Map for the Journey
Stories have an outline – a beginning, a middle and an end. Today we’ll talk about how to start a story with a bang and hook the reader from the very first sentence. We’ll think about the complication and how it propels the character into the action, getting the story rolling. And we’ll discuss what our main character wants, what might stop him getting it, and how this will drive the story.
Week 4-6: Time to Write!
Sharpen your pencils, it’s time to put it all together. Today we begin the first draft, using the characters, setting and outline we’ve developed over the first three weeks. First drafts are wild and crazy, and often make no sense at all. Punctuation doesn’t matter. Spelling doesn’t matter. We’ll worry about that later. Today we write and write and write!
Week 7: The Second Draft
This is the easy part. We’ve written the story – now we have to knock it into shape. Does it make sense? Does it need anything else? Are the commas in the right place? Would it be better with a new paragraph here or another sentence there? Time to get out our red pencils and scribble.
Week 8: Polishing your Masterpiece
How do you get a story published? What does an editor do? We’ll put the final touches on our stories and hand them over to Karen for a professional edit, and then we’ll talk about the practical process of publishing a book. We’ll wrap it all up with a big celebration. It’s been hard work and lots of fun, and in a few weeks our stories will be published in a real book!
Publish a Book
Every child becomes a published author in this exciting full term workshop program. Includes 8 x 1 hour workshops, story editing, book design, layout and printing. Available in person or on Zoom.
Individual Workshops
1-3 hour creative writing workshops, tailored to the age and size of the group. Topics include Animal Magic, Lost in the Jungle, Once there were Dragons, Steampunk, Zombies, Haunted House, Secret Island, or anything you like.
Full Day Creative Writing Program
Up to 4 separate 1 hour workshops for different groups or 1 x 3 hour workshop in the morning from 9am-12pm and 1 x 2 hour workshop in the afternoon from 1pm-3pm.
To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.
Victor Hugo