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Varsha Seshan

The Second Person Short Story

May 31, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

We haven’t ever worked on the second-person short story, which is what made this writing workshop particularly interesting for me! I love it when I get to work with something new at a guest session! Michelle D’costa conducted a detailed session, introducing the three narrative perspectives and focussing on the second person narrator. From common […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: creative writing with children, guest session, Michelle D'costa, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, second person short story

Lights, Camera, Action!

May 4, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Lights, Camera, Action! was a whirlwind introduction to filmmaking, one which I thoroughly enjoyed. I know next to nothing about filmmaking, making this guest session all the more exciting for me. What an informative, detailed session it was! We began by watching a short film in French, Detour by Michel Gondry. Samina Mishra, our guest for the evening, […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: filmmaking, guest session, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, Samina Mishra

Cartooning with Vineet Nair

April 20, 2025 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What makes a cartoon different from a regular drawing? What is easier to draw? What do you think is important when you are drawing a cartoon? We had such an enjoyable workshop on cartooning with Vineet Nair, comic book illustrator and Art Director of Tinkle! The first rule, which I loved, but which the participants […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Amar Chitra Katha, cartooning, guest session, online workshops for children, Tinkle, Vineet Nair

The Art of Laughter

December 10, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Every time I begin a new batch of my writing programme, it feels like the weeks fly by! This edition is nearly at an end, marked by our third and last guest session of the season. This session was conducted by Arundhati Venkatesh, author of a number of humorous books. My book clubbers have read […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Arundhati Venkatesh, creative writing with children, creative writing workshop, guest session, online workshops for children

PodLab with Menaka Raman

November 12, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

At the Neev Literature Festival 2023, I watched Menaka Raman conduct a session on character development, and I knew I wanted to invite her to my writing programme. She did a session for us today, and what an engaging session it was! Her lively teaching style made the workshop a treat.  This workshop was my […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: creative writing with children, creative writing workshop, guest session, Menaka Raman, podcasting

Illustrating Picture Books with Ashok Rajagopalan

October 22, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What an enriching session we had on illustrating picture books with Ashok Rajagopalan! “I didn’t know this, but I make an angry face when I’m drawing an angry face!” Ashok said. “If I want to draw a sad face, I make a sad face myself.” I remember seeing something about Disney doing the same thing. […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Ashok Rajagopalan, guest session, online workshops for children

Character Design with Priyankar Gupta

May 19, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Practice. What a difference practice makes! Right through yesterday’s guest session on character design, I marvelled at how swiftly Priyankar Gupta created his characters. Talking all the time, explaining what he was doing, he was able to draw not one, but six full forms in fifteen minutes! Characters, both human and non-human, are led by […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: art workshop, character design, guest session, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, Priyankar Gupta

How to Rhyme Without Reason

April 21, 2024 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

How I love guest sessions! Yesterday’s workshop on nonsense verse with Anushka Ravishankar was a treat. It’s delightful how serious nonsense verse is! Full of contradictions, full of rules (of what nonsense verse is not), and full of surprises, we learned so much and wrote nonsense poems of our own too.  Essentially, nonsense writing is […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Anushka Ravishankar, creative writing with children, guest session, nonsense verse, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children

Green Stuff and Nonsense

October 27, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What a fun session we had on green writing with Bijal Vachharajani! In a single hour, we spoke of a million creatures from elephants to frogs, ferrets to spiders, lion-tailed macaques to slugs that aren’t slugs. Bijal’s workshop was a guest session at my writing programme. We’ve just reached the end of our poetry module, […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Bijal Vachharajani, creative writing with children, guest session, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children

Art Workshop with Kripa

June 16, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Each time a new writing programme begins, I feel it whizzes by. Twelve weeks are nearly over, and here we are, after our last guest session of the programme, an art workshop with art educator and children’s illustrator, Kripa. It was such a treat! I’ve been looking at Kripa’s art for a while, and I […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: art workshop, guest session, Kripa, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children

Non-Boring Nonfiction

May 7, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

It is always so rewarding when a guest speaker repeats something you’ve been saying at your writing programmes for a long time! Thank you, Vaishali, for this session on non-boring nonfiction, and for reiterating so many things that keep needing to be said! In November last year, I watched Vaishali Shroff conduct two sessions at […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: guest session, nonfiction workshop, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, Vaishali Shroff

Poetry in Collaboration with Sampurna Chattarji

April 21, 2023 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

My first guest session of the season – Poetry in Collaboration – was such a success! With sixteen enthusiastic participants and one lively, energetic facilitator, the hour flew by before we knew it. Haiku, renga, nonets, free verse–we explored it all. Often, we believe that writing must be a solo activity. We have creative thoughts […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: guest session, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, Poetry Workshop, Sampurna Chattarji

Building Dramatic Characters

November 12, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What fun we had at ‘Building Dramatic Characters’ – a guest session conducted by Neha Singh for my creative writing programme! To quote Neha, anything can be a character. Maybe even a chair talking to the moon! The strength of a character simply depends on how much you have invested in the character to make […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: drama workshop, guest session, Neha Singh, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children

Demystifying Publishing

October 30, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

One of the best things about my creative writing programmes is how much I learn on the way. For one, before each class, I research for hours. One hour of class time typically requires at least four hours of research.And for another, I invite guests to talk about a variety of subjects from science fiction […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Andaleeb Wajid, creative writing, Demystifying Publishing, guest session, online creative writing programme

The Editor’s Perspective

June 14, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

The last guest session at this edition of my creative writing programme was with Daphne Lee, consulting editor at Scholastic Asia. It was everything I expected it to be – informative, detailed, and full of laughter. She answered questions, told us about the publishing process, and shared a manuscript with us, detailing how the editing […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Daphne Lee, guest session, online creative writing programme

The Art of Zines

May 31, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

We just had another rewarding guest session! Niloufer Wadia, an illustrator and Urban Sketcher, covered so much ground in one short hour with my creative writing programme – you can guess what I mean from the picture above! From showing us different kinds of zines to telling us about storyboarding, she led us through the […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: guest session, illustration workshop, Niloufer Wadia, online creative writing programme

‘Mics It Up! – A Comic-Making Workshop

May 7, 2022 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again. There’s nothing like inviting guests to my writing programmes. The energy, the fun, the enthusiasm … Can you believe that every participant (except me) managed to create a comic strip during the session? Greystroke, an author, illustrator, filmmaker and entrepreneur, took us through the […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: comic making, Greystroke, guest session, online creative writing programme

All About Research with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya

October 24, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

What an enjoyable writing workshop we had yesterday with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya! Every guest session is fun, and I keep realising that when a teacher plans a session, it is meticulous, detailed, excellent! We discussed what we research, how we research and why we research, but then we went on to something that’s important to […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: creative writing with children, creative writing workshop, guest session, Nonfiction, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, research, Shayani Bhattacharya

The ART of Stories

June 22, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

And just like that, the third and last guest session at this edition of my online creative writing programme is over! This one was an illustration workshop, conducted by children’s book illustrator and author Tanvi Bhat.  As always, the participants had so many questions! Here are a handful. How do we create our own style […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: guest session, illustration workshop, online creative writing programme, Tanvi Bhat

Pirates, Legends, and Historical Fiction

May 30, 2021 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Yesterday’s guest session was full of stories! While we are familiar with Long John Silver and Davy Jones’s locker, how many of us are equally familiar with Kanhoji Angre and the pirates of the Malabar? We began with a discussion of myths, legends, and historical fiction, and this, I think, is an important idea that […]

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: creative writing workshop, guest session, historical fiction, online creative writing programme, online workshops for children, Radhika Seshan

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