Yesterday, I ran my first ever writing workshop for teens. It was hosted by the Monash Library in Oakleigh, and was an amazing opportunity, as well as something new. I haven’t had any teacher training and the only children I’ve really taught have been preschoolers in Sunday School.
On Monday night, I was freaking out a bit – I had ideas of what to present, but hadn’t actually written anything down yet! After a chat with my amazing librarian, I calmed down and got writing. (The fact that the workshop was booked out with a waiting list hadn’t helped either!)
This was advertised as a practical writing workshop, so I figured the best thing to do was to get writing.
I prepared an introduction with some basic information about me and information about flash fiction. There’s a short story competition coming up and the word limit for teens is 500 words.
Following my introduction, I handed out some writing prompts and the kids got writing. After a time, a number of them shared what they’d written and I threw out chocolate frogs and lollipops. The kids did a second prompt before we had a Fan Fiction challenge.
At the end of the workshop, we told the kids about the short story competition and an anthology they may want to submit stories to. The kids also went home with a page of writing prompts to help them when they went home.
In spite of my freak out on Monday night, the workshop yesterday went really well. I hope everyone had a lot of fun, I know I did. I even had a few chocolate frogs and lollipops left over…
I hope this is the first of many workshops.
