Writing Kid Lit ~ Picture Books to YA, Thursday mornings, Oct 5 – Nov 30, in Oakville, with authors Sylvia McNicoll and Jennifer Mook-Sang as guest speakers

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong, a
New York Times #1 bestselling author
and one of Brian’s students

Writing Kid Lit ~ Picture Books to Young Adult

 Thursday mornings, October 5 – November 30, 2017

9:45 – 11:45 a.m.

Woodside Branch of the Oakville Public Library
1274 Rebecca St, Oakville, Ontario (Map here)

See details of all 7 weekly courses offered this fall here. 

From picture books to young adult novels, this weekly course is accessible for beginners and meaty enough for advanced writers. Through lectures, in-class assignments, homework, and feedback on your writing, we’ll give you ins and outs of writing for younger readers and set you on course toward writing your own books. 

We’ll have two published children’s authors as guest speakers: 

Sylvia McNicoll is the author of over thirty books, many of which have garnered awards and Her YA novel, Crush.candy.corpse was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis YA Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Red Maple Award, the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, and the Snow Willow Award, as well as being selected as one of the Ontario Library Association's Best Bets and Resource Links' Year's Best for 2012. 

Most acclaimed, though, are her three middle grade books about fostering guide dogs  Bringing Up Beauty, Beauty Returns, and A Different Kind of Beauty which won and were nominated for many children’s choice awards. Her 2015 YA novel Best Friends Through Eternity tells the story of an adopted Chinese teen for whom an ill-fated shortcut along a rail track leads to the discovery of some uncomfortable truths. 

In 2017, Sylvia launched her new middle grade series The Great Mistake Mysteries beginning with The Best Mistake Mystery in January and The Artsy Mistake Mystery in September and finishing with The Snake Mystery in January 2018.

Jennifer Mook-Sang grew up in Caribbean Guyana and moved to Canada when she was fourteen. While reading bedtime stories to her two sons, she fell in love with picture books and decided to write one of her own. In one of Brian Henry's classes she found the beginnings of a story. That story grew into the humorous middle-grade novel Speechless, published by Scholastic in 2015. 

Speechless won the Surrey Schools Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for many other awards, and was recommended by the Ontario Library Association, the Canadian Childrens’ Book Centre, the CBC, and the TD Summer Reading Club. Jennifer’s spent the past year giving numerous school and library presentations and meeting her many young readers.  

In October, just in time for her to bring copies to our class, Jennifer's picture book Captain Monty Takes the Plunge will be released by Kids Can Press.

Jennifer lives in Burlington, Ontario. You can find out more about her at: jennifermooksang.com 

Speechless is available online here.

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. Brian is the author of a children’s version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  (Tribute Publishing). But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published. 

Read a review of Brian's Writing Kid Lit course here and read reviews of s of Brian’s various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

Course fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = 199

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian’s complete current schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.