Online: Writing for Children and for Young Adults, with Scholastic Books editor Anne Shone, Saturday, January 28

The Serpent's Fury. a midle-grade novel
by Kelley Armstrong a NYT #1 bestselling author
and one of Brian's students 

Writing for Children and for Young Adults

  ~ The world’s hottest market

With Scholastic Books Executive Editor

  ~ Anne Shone

Saturday, January 28, 2023
1:15 – 5:00 p.m.
Online via Zoom and accessible wherever there’s Internet

If you want to write the next best-selling children’s books or just want to create stories for your own kids, this workshop is for you. Learn how to write stories kids and young adults will love and find out what you need to know to sell your book. This is your chance to speak with someone within a publishing company in a small group setting and to pull back the curtain and see how it all works. Be sure to bring your questions – we'll have lots of time for interaction.

Special option: Participants are invited to submit the opening couple pages (first 500 words) of your children’s book or young adult novel (or up to 1,000 words if that gets you to the end of your picture book or to the end of your first chapter). Email your pages to me prior to our workshop. We want to do some peer critiquing for everyone, and Anne and I will publicly critique half a dozen submissions so everyone can see what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve your story-telling. If you’re not currently working on a children’s story, don’t worry, we’ll get you started! ~Brian

Guest speaker Anne Shone is the Executive Editor at Scholastic Canada, where she acquires books for publication. Anne has worked in book publishing for over twenty-five years, concentrating on children’s books for the last twenty. In that time, she has worked with many of the top children’s book authors and illustrators in this country. 

Recent highlights include: picture books (Choose Kindness by Ruth Ohi, Do You Wonder? by Wallace Edwards, and about-to-be released Smile So Big by Sunshine Tenasco, illustrated by Chief Lady Bird); graphic novels (The Good Fight, by Ted Staunton, illustrated by Josh Rosen); novels (Autumn Bird and the Runaway by Melanie Florence and Richard Scrimger; Eight Days by Teresa Toten; P.S. Tell No One by Vikki VanSickle; and the Hockey Super Six series by Kevin Sylvester); nonfiction (Keep Up, Katmai by Barrett Hedges and Pili Palm-Leis; and It Seemed Like a Good Idea….  by Ted Staunton and Will Staunton)—with lots of new and exciting things in development. 

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor, author, and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada’s most popular blog for writers and is the author of a children’s version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Tribute Publishing Inc). But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published.

Read reviews of Brian’s classes and workshops here.

Fee: $43.36 + 13% hst = $49 paid in advance by mail or Interac

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

See all of Brian’s upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here.