Online spring courses: Writing Kid Lit, Writing Personal Stories, Welcome to Creative Writing, and Intensive Creative Wrtiting

Captain Monty Takes the Plunge
by our guest speaker Jennifer Mook-Sang

Writing Kid Lit

Picture Books to Young Adult Novels

Wednesday evenings, 7 – 9 p.m.
April 21 – June 16, 2021
Offered online and accessible from anywhere there's internet 

This course is for adults {or teens} interested in writing picture books, Chapter Books, Middle Grade books, or Young Adult novels. This 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: Jennifer Mook-Sang and Kira Vermond. See further details here.

Fee: $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

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

Writing Personal Stories

9 weeks of sharing and writing

Offered at two different times 

Tuesday afternoons, 1 – 3 p.m.
April 13 – June 15, 2021 

And

Thursday afternoons, 1 – 3 p.m.
April 15 – June 24, 2021 {no class June 10}

Offered online and accessible wherever there's Internet

If you've ever considered writing your personal stories, this course is for you. We’ll look at memoirs, travel writing, personal essays, family history ~ personal stories of all kinds. Plus, of course, we’ll work on creativity and writing technique and have fun doing it. 

Whether you want to write a book or just get your thoughts down on paper, this weekly course will get you going. We'll reveal the tricks and conventions of telling true stories, and we’ll show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Weekly writing exercises and friendly feedback from the instructor will help you move forward on this writing adventure. Whether you want to write for your family and friends or for a wider public, don't miss this course.

We’ll have a guest speaker for both classes. For the Tuesday afternoon session, our guest will be Sue Williams, author of the memoir Ready to Come About, and for Thursday afternoon session Jennifer M. Smith, author of the memoir, Green Ghost, Blue Ocean. More details here.

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

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

Welcome to Creative Writing

10 weeks of discovering your creative side

Thursday evenings, 7 – 9 p.m.
April 15 – June 24, 2021 {no class June 10}
Offered online on Zoom and accessible from anywhere there's internet 

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.

Fee:  $176.11 plus 13% hst = $199

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

Intensive Creative Writing

Offered at two different times 

Tuesday evenings, 6:45 – 9:00 p.m.
April 13 – June 29, 2021 
First reading emailed April 6
Offered online, accessible anywhere there’s Internet

And

Friday mornings, 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
April 9 – June 25, 2021 {no class June 11}
First readings emailed Sept 11
Offered online, accessible anywhere there’s Internet

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. You’ll be asked to bring in five pieces of your writing for detailed feedback, including three long 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.

Fee: $229.20 + hst = $259

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 current schedule here, including online and in-person writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, 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.