Congratulations to Erin, Anne, Barbara, Florence, and Linda!

Erin

Hi, Brian.

Good news! I’ve sold my picture book, The Shiva, to Orca. The same publisher also bought my nonfiction book for kids called Rush Hour, about the impact of traffic on the environment. Both should be out in 2022. I’ll have lots of work to do between now and then.

I just wanted to let you know and thank you for all your help with these projects. I could never have gotten this far without your feedback – and especially without the support of your wonderful classes! Speak to you soon!

Erin Silver

Note: There’s still space in some of the spring online writing classes, including two Welcome to Creative Writing classes, a Kid Lit class, and a Next Step in Creative Writing course, which is good for working on your manuscript in progress {see here}, and it’s not too early to reserve a spot for a summer class {see here}.

For information about submitting to Orca Books, see here.

Note: Erin’s first nonfiction book, Proud to Play  {for ages 10–17, from Lorimer Publishing}, was scheduled for release in March, then in June to coincide with Pride week, but now with the corona virus, the pub date has been put off yet again till ... we don’t know! But you can still place your pre-order with Lorimer here.

Anne

Dear Brian,

I have some good news, thanks to you!  In one of your seminars last summer you told us about CommuterLit. I sent Ms. Clark a story, "Unimaginable" and learned last Thursday that she wants to publish it. Thanks again, and I'll be taking more seminars and classes with you!

Also, thanks for your posting on cultural appropriation. Very good to know.

Kind regards,

Anne McAdam

Read Anne’s story here.

For information on submitting to CommuterLit, see here.

To read my posting about cultural appropriation, see here. ~Brian

Barbara

Hi, Brian.

Hope my latest First Person piece in The Globe & Mail makes you laugh. Or chuckle. Or at least force you to grin.
Barbara Wackerle Baker

Read Barbara’s piece, "No one likes getting a mammogram, but this one provided me with an unexpected lesson" in the G&M here.

For information on submitting a personal essay to the Globe and Mail (and to 21 other places), see here.

Florence

Hi, Brian.

Just wanted to let you know- with more than a nod to you and your workshops and the chance to work on impromptu short stories- that I was able to get a few of my pieces published in some of the literary magazines this past fall:

Love Handles is in the online journal Understorey Magazine, Issue 16 (and can be read online here)

Big Top is published in The Fiddlehead, Vol 281, Autumn, 2019 (and was also accepted by The Antioch Review)

House on Fire is published in The Dalhousie Review, Summer 2019 issue (and was also accepted by The New Quarterly)

So there I was, having to choose for those two stories! That was exciting.

All the best,

Florence MacDonald

For information on submitting to Understorey Magazine, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, and 29 other Canadian literary journals that pay, see here.

Linda

Hi, Brian.
Got some nice news. I received an Ontario Arts Council Grant, recommended by OwlKids, to work on my middle grade book. It will buy me some time to address the changes you suggested.

Nice!

And thank you again for your work on the manuscript.

Linda Rosenbaum

For information on Ontario Arts Council Grants, see here.

I’m always available for consults about short works – a query letter, a picture book, a short story, an opening chapter, or maybe several chapters of a middle grade book. Just send me an email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

For full manuscripts, I’m available only in the summer and over the winter break. Details here.  ~Brian

See Brian Henry's schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly online writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

“Joy” by Sara Wood-Gates

She could smell it as soon as her mom pulled into the driveway, the manure smell. Not a bad smell, not like her brother’s farts, but a deep earthy rich smell. And there were other smells layered under it; the fresh newness of hay, the rich brown smell of leather.

She stood beside the car, sneaker toe scuffing the dusty driveway, looking at the ground and feeling incredibly out of place. Both in this space as well as in her own body. She could feel her jeans stretching over her 12-year-old hips and thighs in a way that was new, and she quickly crossed her arms over her chest to protect the sensitive growth.

“Let’s go!” her mom called as she walked briskly to the barn. The girl trailed along behind, not entirely resistant but feeling apprehensive.

When her grandmother had mentioned the riding lessons as a birthday gift, the girl had been so excited. Years of watching her grandmother’s horses, whom everyone was forbidden from riding, had primed her for the day she would get to climb onto one of those beautiful beasts. And, of course she had read all the teenage, angsty, horseback riding books. She was sure she knew the names of all the tack even if she wasn’t sure she knew how to get it all on the horse.  She even knew to wait until a few minutes had passed after initially tightening the saddle to tighten it one more time in case the horse was purposely pushing out its belly.  

But what she wasn’t ready for was having to talk to people; introduce herself, make small talk with adults she didn’t know, explain why she was there. That made her want to run back to the car and hide, slouched down in the passenger seat until her mother agreed to take her home. But she strengthened her resolve and pushed on. She really wanted to get to the horses and if she had to suffer the agony of conversation to make it happen, she would.

She looked like the average pre-teen, floppy shapeless hair of an indiscriminate blond colour in jeans and a sweatshirt appropriate for the spring weather. She wandered into the barn, trailing behind her mom, stealing herself for what was about to come.

It wasn’t as painful as she expected. The woman who was taking her out was nice and friendly, undaunted by monosyllabic responses. She chatted away easily as she introduced the girl to the horse she was to ride and went over all the tack and how to put in on properly.  The girl smiled shyly as she correctly named each piece before putting them on her horse. Her horse was a beauty! Tall and strong looking, muscles rippling under his glossy dark brown coat, the sunlight filtering into the barn highlighting every movement.

“Miguel sure is a looker, isn’t he?” the instructor called back to her as they lead their horses out into the spring day.

The girl barely heard her. She was lost in the wonder of the animal. It was so big and alive, its hair soft, its skin warm when she put her hand out to strake its neck.

“He can get a bit headstrong but keep a firm grip on the reins and you’ll be fine. We’re going to head out on a trail that takes about forty-five minutes.  He knows the way so don’t worry about that. We’re going to head across the field, through the woods, and then down an embankment that gets kind of steep before heading back all in a loop. I’ll stop you before we go down to give you some pointers so don’t worry about it before we get there. I know it’s your first lesson, so we won’t be galloping but how do you feel about a canter?”

The girl looked up, eyes hiding behind her bangs, “Umm, ok?”

The instructor smiled back. “Great, let’s go!”

The girl hoisted herself into the saddle on the first try, and they set off. It was a beautiful late-April day. The air had a sharpness warning of the frost recently melted but the sun blessed everything it touched with a warm kiss, and there was a fresh smell to the air hinting of new growth. 

They crossed the field at a walk so the girl could get a feel for the irregular gait of the horse. She grinned as they ambled along. It was at once both strange to feel herself being shifted side to side as they walked and familiar, like a memory just out of reach.

“You’re doing great!” the instructor called back to her. “Let’s take it up a notch.”

They moved into a trot as they entered the chilled shade of the woods. The girl’s smile widened as she felt herself being jostled in a new way, the horse speeding up to follow his leader.  She was enjoying herself even more than she expected. 

Too soon they stopped for a briefing before descending into the ravine. The instructor told to hold the reins loosely because the horse knew what to do, to lean back when it got steep so as not to shift her centre of gravity forward, and to stay calm and relaxed so her horse wouldn’t get spooked.

They began the descent. Her horse sure-footed and calm, and the girl relaxed into the lurching repetition, leaning back until her hair brushed the horse’s haunches behind her as it became quite steep and feeling pride grow in her heart.

I’m doing it! she thought as she felt her connection to the horse growing.

Then before she knew it, the instructor  was praising for her nerves and her technique.

The rest of the ride was uneventful as they wound their way through the woods and back out to the sun-shiny field. Just a short ride now to the barn.

“You ready to speed things up a bit?” her instructor asked.

“Yes!”

They started to accelerate from a walk, reaching a trot the girl recognized, but then the acceleration continued to a new, faster, more regular gait. A new emotion rose in her body, a joy pure and unbridled as it swelled into her throat and exploded as laughter out of her mouth.

She could feel the up and down, up and down, rhythm – and what she’s read about posting popped into her mind. She started to coordinate a slight rise out of the saddle in time with the horse.

Yes. So smooth now.

And all the while she was overcome with the pure unadulterated elation of it all. Feeling, for the first time in a long time, free from her own insecurities, from her introversion, from the changes she had no control over.

Her laughter carried her across the last field and all the way back to the barn.

Sara Wood-Gates is a single mother of two children living in Burlington Ontario. She has spent most of her career in various customer service roles from serving in restaurants, to planning events, to counselling job seekers on their careers. Currently Sara works as a Pre-Sales Solution Architect for an American company which has allowed her to work from home since 2013. Sara is excited to draw from her wealth of personal stories as she dabbles in writing.

See Brian Henry's schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly online writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Online courses this spring: Introductory, Next Step, and Intensive creative writing, plus Writing Kid Lit: Picture Books to Young Adult Novels

Welcome to Creative Writing

10 weeks of discovering your creative side
Offered at two times:

Thursday evenings, 7 – 9 p.m.

{not 6:30 – 8:30 as previously posted}

April 16 – June 25, 2020 (No class June 4)

This course was going to be in Oakville; it will now take place online.

And

Friday afternoons, 1:15 – 3:15

April 10 – June 19 (No class June 5)

This course was going to be in Toronto; it will now take place online.

This is your chance to take up writing in a warm, supportive environment. This course will open the door to writing short stories and writing dialogue, writing in first person and writing in third person, writing just for fun and writing all kinds of things. You’ll get a shot of inspiration every week and an assignment to keep you going till the next class. Best of all, this class will provide a zero-pressure, totally safe setting, where your words will grow and flower.

The course will focus on writing prose, but for one class, we will have a distinguished poet for our guest speaker:

Elizabeth Crocket is an author and poet. Her Japanese short form poetry has been published internationally and in most of the leading journals. She had two chapbooks published with Red Moon Press. One of them, Not Like Fred and Ginger, was shortlisted for the prestigious American Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award.

She currently has two poetry books, Wondering What's Next and How Soon the Colour Fades, published with Cyberwit.net. It was just announced that her first children's picture book, Happy Haiku, published with Crimson Cloak Publishing, has also been shortlisted for the American Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. 
Visit Liz online here. 

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

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

Author Sylvia McNicoll

Writing Kid Lit

~ Picture Books to Young Adult Novels

Thursday afternoons, 12:45 – 2:45

April 16 – June 18 (No class June 4)
This course was going to be in Burlington; it will now take place online.

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. Her most recent YA novel, Body Swap, won the 2019 Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction. 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, and was 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. See the trailer here.

In 2019, Sylvia completed her middle grade series The Great Mistake Mysteries by adding the Diamond Mistake Mystery (see the trailer here). The three earlier books in this series were: The Best Mistake Mystery, The Artsy Mistake Mystery, and The Snake Mystery foreign rights for which were recently sold to Russia.

Author Kira Vermond signing books

Kira Vermond is an award-winning writer with over 1,500 articles to her name. She has been a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, CBC and Today's Parent.

Kira is the author of five nonfiction books for young readers {with a sixth on the way}:  Why Don’t Cars Run on Apple Juice (more here); Half-Truths and Brazen Lies, (more here); Why We Live Where We Live (more here); Growing Up: Inside and Out (nominated for on Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Award); and The Secret Life of Money: A Kid's Guide to Cash (which was my son’s and daughter’s favourite book  the year it came out, although my kids are four years apart). Plus, coming in March 2020: Trending: How and Why Stuff Gets Popular (more here).

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

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

Next Step in Creative Writing

10 weeks of growth as a writer

Tuesday afternoons, 12:30 – 2:45

April 14 – June 23 (No class June 9)

First readings emailed April 7

This course was going to be in Burlington; it will now take place online.

The Next Step in Creative Writing is for people who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. Over the ten weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to bring in five pieces of your writing for detailed feedback. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures addressing the needs of the group, and in addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

Fee: $184.96 + 13% hst = $209

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

Intensive Creative Writing

8 intense weeks of writing & critiquing

Offered online
With everyone indoors, lots of people want to sign up for my online courses, so I’m offering this extra session of Intensive Creative Writing …
April 28 – June 16 {and if the course fills up, we’ll extend it a week to June 23}
First readings emailed April 21

Intensive Creative Writing isn't for beginners; it's for people who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. Over the eight weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to bring in four pieces of your writing for detailed feedback – including two longer pieces. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures addressing the needs of the group, and in addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.
This course will be done live online. To participate, you'll need a computer connected to the Internet, with a microphone and, for preference, a camera.

Fee: $176.11 + 13% hst = $199

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

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 reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

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

New: an extra Intensive Creative Writing course for the spring, Tuesday evenings, April 28 – June 16

Intensive Creative Writing
8 intense weeks of writing & critiquing

With everyone indoors, lots of people want to sign up for my online courses, so I’m offering this extra session of Intensive Creative Writing …

Tuesday evenings, 6:45 – 9:00 p.m.

April 28 – June 16 {and if the course fills up, we’ll extend it a week to June 23}

First readings emailed April 21

Conducted live online on the Zoom platform

Intensive Creative Writing isn't for beginners; it's for people who have been writing for a while or who have done a course or two before and are working on their own projects. Over the eight weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to submit four pieces of your writing for detailed feedback – including two longer pieces. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on. 

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures addressing the needs of the group, and in addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

This course will be held online. To participate, you'll need a computer connected to the Internet, with a microphone and, for preference, a camera. We'll plan to have a practice before the course proper starts.

Fee: $176.11 + 13% hst = $199

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

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. But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published. 

Read reviews of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly online writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.