Back in 2013, I was approached by the Monash Public Library Service to facilitate some creative writing sessions for teens. I was surprised but said, ‘Sure, why not?’. I have been running these ever since.
The sessions are fairly simple. There is a writing prompt, some writing time, then some sharing time. There is no pressure on the kids to write a certain way and sometimes they write, sometimes they don’t, but they keep coming! These groups are now in other places too.
Fast forward to 2020 and lockdowns. The young writers’ group went online, and expanded. At the busiest, I was running around 6 workshops a week! This was a lot of writing prompts to come up with, but I thought of activities and the participants had a lot of fun with them.
When everything opened up in 2022, the number of groups slowed down, and I had hundreds of prompts that I had created. I wanted to do something with them, so decided to compile some of them into a book so others could have fun with them.
I reached out to all the kids and teens who had attended the virtual groups during 2020 and 2021 and asked for their favourite prompts. I put them together and Genie in my Drink Bottle and Other Fun Writing Prompts was created.
Initially, I paid someone to do the cover and layout, but when I decided to do a second book, I changed the cover so they would look like a series.
This book has been bought by people at markets and online and sent to many young writers to enjoy having fun with creative writing.
You can get your copy from this website or Amazon in print and ebook, or on other ebook platforms.
These prompt books are great gifts for young writers to encourage them to have fun with writing stories.
