3 great workshops soon: Writing Your Life, You Can Write Great Dialogue, and How to Write Great Characters

Writing your life and other true stories

With guest author Ross Pennie

Saturday, June 23, 2018

10: a.m. – 4 p.m.

Unity Church, Unit 8, 30175 Ridgeway Drive, Mississauga (Map here.)

Have you ever considered writing your memoirs or family history? This workshop will introduce you to the tricks and conventions of telling true stories and will show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Whether you want to write for your family or for a wider public, don't miss this workshop.

Ross Pennie is the author of The Unforgiving Tides, a doctor’s memoir of Papua New Guinea (Manor House Publishing). Ross also writes medical mystery novels, published by ECW Press. The first of these, Tainted, came out in 2010 and won Arts Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction. He’s followed up with three more medical mysteries: Tampered, Up in Smoke, and Beneath the Wake. (For more about Ross's mysteries or to buy one, see here). 

At the workshop, Ross will speak on how to turn ordinary life into dramatic material and will answer questions about how he wrote his memoir and got it published.

Fee: 37.17 + hst = $42 paid in advance or 39.82 + hst = $45 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve a spot now, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

You Can Write Great Dialogue

Saturday, July 14, 2018

12:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Albion-Bolton Branch, Caledon Public Library, 150 Queen Street South, Bolton, Ontario (Map here)

Accessible to beginners and meaty enough for experienced writers, this workshop will show you how to use dialogue to make your stories more dynamic and dramatic. 

Whether you’re writing fiction or memoir, you need to be able to write great dialogue that both sounds natural and packs dramatic punch, and you need to know how to mix your dialogue and narrative so that your characters come alive. Come to this workshop and learn both the basics and the best tricks of the trade.

Fee: 37.17 + 13% hst = 42 paid in advance or 39.82 + 13% hst = 45 if you wait to pay at the door

To pay in advance, make your cheque out to the Caledon Public Library and mail it to:

Attention:  Megan Renkema , Caledon Public Library, Albion Bolton Branch, 150 Queen Street South, Bolton, ON, L7E 1E3

Or you can pay in advance in person at any Caledon Library branch. 

To reserve a spot now, sign up online here.

How to Write Great Characters 

Saturday, July 21, 2018
1:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Harcourt United Church, 87 Dean Ave, Guelph, Ontario (Map here.)

Whatever you're writing ~ fiction or nonfiction ~ readers will care about your story only if they care about your people. In this workshop, you'll learn techniques for creating fictional characters and depicting real people. You’ll learn how to breathe life into the page so that your characters start telling you how the story should go.

Fee: 37.17 + hst = 42 paid in advance or 39.82 + hst = 45 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve a spot now, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Workshop leader 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. But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get their first book published and launch their careers as authors.

Read reviews of Brian's classes, workshops and writing retreats here (and scroll down).

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