Tutor: Emma Read is a children’s author and creative writing mentor and tutor. Her debut novel for young readers, Milton the Mighty, was one of The Times’ Best Children’s Books of 2019. It also won the N. Somerset Teachers Award and was shortlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award. Other published works include short stories and flash fiction.
Emma provides mentoring to unagented writers and, when possible, also runs in-person workshops for schools, libraries and festivals.
She lives in Bath, with her young family and many, many notebooks.
Start Date: January 31st 2024
Duration: 6 Weeks
Fee: £160
2 places remaining
The Children’s Creative Writing Course is designed to introduce your child or class to creative writing. It contains several exercises and tips to encourage children’s creative writing and offers the opportunity, over the course of six lessons, for a child to design and write a short story of their own. This course is primarily designed for children aged between 7-12.
Course Outline:
Module 1: So, Seriously – Storytelling?
An introduction to stories – why do we tell them, have we always told them, and where can we find them? Hint, they are all around us!
Module 2: Inspiration and Ideas
Where do ideas come from and how can we seek them out. How do we know if an idea is a good one? Including what you can do if you can’t think of any!
Module 3: Creating Characters
In this module we’ll learn how to make people! We’ll make them feel real, authentic, and right for their story. Then we’ll give them something to do.
Module 4: Wonderful Worlds
How to invent a whole new place – from the ordinary, to the out-of-this-world. We’ll look at different environments, how to describe them, and how to make them feel real – even if they are utterly incredible!
Module 5: Solid Structures
A quick look at how to construct a plot for your story, as well as exploring writing craft techniques to perfect your dialogue and presentation.
Module 6: Prose, plays, poems, and pictures
We’ll finish by looking at how to combine the course modules into your preferred form of storytelling, be it narrative, script, poetry, or graphic novel/comic. With homework assignments and stretch-goals for older writers.
