The Playwriting Module – Reflections and Resources
And just like that, the playwriting module of my creative writing programme is also over! We read two plays, played with props, explored dialogue, imagined the stage, examined the differences between writing scripts for stage and for screen … And I’m exhilarated. As always, the generosity of the community of teachers and writers online is astounding. Some resources work for me; some don’t, but each one I come across is useful.
So, it’s my turn. Here are a few activities I used successfully in class this time.
Writing Natural Dialogue
Writing dialogue that reads naturally is challenging. Even though I have been writing for so long, I sometimes find myself using long, winding sentences in dialogue and have to remind myself that we don’t regularly use long sentences beginning with ‘although’ or ‘despite’. And can you imagine using them when you’re excited?
This led me to create an activity that is ideal for small batches of online creative writing programmes. Give the children a situation and let them speak. Record what they say and play it back to them. What do they notice? Do they use complete sentences all the time? How long are the sentences?
Here are two topics I created for them. Feel free to use them too!
- All of you are in a library. Suddenly, a book starts glowing. What happens next?
- You discover a secret door in your school. How do you and your friends react?
Common Mistakes
Short videos always help, even if the children listen to just your voice yet again. If nothing else, a video gives them a break from having to focus on your face! Based on everything I encountered and everything I read, I made a video about the common mistakes made while writing plays.
Sounds
I use sounds in class all the time. Most presentation softwares have some sounds that you can insert into your work. Playing short sounds and asking children to describe them is a way to make children pay attention to more than just the visual world around them.
This time, I used a linked series of sounds – a creaking door, the clopping of shoes on wood, a wolf howling and wind. This led us, of course, to a discussion of genre and how to make different kinds of plays come alive.
Reflections
Reading what children have to say about a module that is over is always heart-warming. Even though the sheer amount of work they share on the forum speaks volumes, reflections like these are reaffirming!
At Least a Fish
I love Anushka Ravishankar’s books. Whether it’s Moin and the Monster or Captain Coconut or At Least a Fish, I find myself chuckling as I read, shaking my head at her wacky humour.
Ana, the protagonist of At Least a Fish, wants a dog. She really wants a dog. But her parents go and get her fish instead – not one, but three! Ana’s friend Zain would call them Fishyone, Fishytwo and Fishythree, but Ana being Ana calls them Socrates, Aristotle (Totty for short) and Plato.
That’s just one of the dozens of crazy things in the story. From a dragon in a filthy pool to a dog who thinks he’s a fish, At Least a Fish brims over with humour and madness. I can’t wait to read it at my reading programme!
Differences
At Least a Fish is such a wonderful book to talk about differences – both obvious ones and not-so-obvious ones. There’s one hilarious page in the book where we have a list of differences between a dog and a fish. There’s also a lovely illustration of a fish mutating into a dragon. What happens there?
From a simple ‘spot the differences’ puzzle to a more thought out list of differences, there’s a whole lot we can do with this idea!
Letters
Ana wants a dog so much that she writes to ‘the person who is charge of reading letters at Adopt-a-pet’. She tries to pretend she is an adult in her letter. I wonder if the children at my reading programme will figure out why she isn’t entirely convincing!
I love working with letters and one of the things I will do at my reading programme is to ask the children to write a letter of their own. Let’s see, depending on whom they choose to write to, maybe I will print their letters and post them. That promises to be fun!
Animals
Ana once adopted a frog and made Zain hide it. She now has three fish. But she wants a dog. What pets do you think are fun to have?
We won’t just discuss pets; we’ll play a game too, one that I’ve played before. I begin by asking children to make a list of ten animals. Then, they make a list of ten things various animals do – a lion roars, a hippopotamus yawns, a frog eats bugs.
Finally, one child begins.
I have a pet. It is a ____
And the next child reads the first animal on their list.
Then, the next child reads the first thing on the ‘verb’ list. The instructions take a while to explain, but the results are always hilarious!
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REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME. The next edition of the programme will be held in August.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Creative Writing Workshops – Reflections and Resources
I spend hours scouring the internet for creative writing resources. I love those hours, even though sometimes I find myself panicking. There are so many wonderful ideas out there! What can I use? I want to use them all! At those times, I need to step away from my laptop and remind myself that I cannot do everything in twelve weeks.
The weeks always fly by once I start a writing programme. I’m more than halfway through. Here are a handful of activities I used successfully this time!
Rhyming Opposites
This seems like an overly simplistic activity, but it works with people (I won’t even say just children) of all ages. It is based on something I came across in the book Writing with Children, by Jackie Reilly and Vanessa Reilly and serves as a great way to begin a session on rhyme! How would you fill in the blanks?
Musical Writing
I have no idea why I’ve never done this before! Once more, adapting an activity from the same book, I chose a piece of music and then asked the children to write as I asked them guiding questions. I love how the same piece leads to completely different results!
13-year-old Shreshta felt that she was in a chocolate factory, while 12-year-old Shreya felt she was in a fun music video with shapes floating around her.
Reflections
Poetry is always fun, and we did so much in four weeks. Haikus, sonnets, cinquains, riddle poems, list poetry, concrete poetry … Here’s what a couple of children have to say about it!
More Resources
Another wonderful resource I discovered this time was Kenn Nesbitt’s poetry website. It’s full of not just poetry, but also step-by-step guidelines to write your own poem!
We’ve moved on to drama, and I’ve been using Drama with Children by Sarah Phillips as my prime resource book. There are several websites I’ve referred to recently, and I hope to share them soon.
Explore the Resources category to discover other reading and creative writing activities for children and adults.
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Esio Trot
Who doesn’t love Esio Trot? Teg reggib, esio trot, teg reggib!
There was a time when I knew the book so well that I could say the whole chant that Mr Hoppy tells Mrs Silver to deliver to little Alfie. Have you come across the tweet about how children’s books should not be given star ratings but ‘again’ ratings based on how many times a child asks to read the book?
By that reckoning, Esio Trot is very high up on my list!
It’s one of those perfect transition books – neither a short story nor a chapter book. Neither a picture book nor a book with just words. That makes it ideal for my reading programme for seven and eight-year-olds!
Backward Games
A book club is all about having fun with books. It’s about celebrating the joy of reading. And that’s why one of the things we’re going to do is talk backwards, just for a bit. Plan what you want to say and write it down before saying it aloud. Let’s see whether we can figure it out!
'Say it with expression'
That’s what Mr Hoppy tells Mrs Silver. Just saying the words isn’t enough; magic words need expression.
Children love to recite poems, especially rhyming ones, so here is the perfect opportunity. During one class, I will ask them to read or recite something – with expression! How much drama can they bring into what they read?
Growing
How do children grow? How does anything grow? Can we watch something grow?
Mrs Silver does not even notice that Alfie grows to double his weight. With Esio Trot, I hope to have the children do an experiment of their own. Especially as most children come back for one edition of the programme after another, this should be fun. They’ll measure their height at the beginning of this book and then again when we end the next reading programme. Let’s see what we find!
Additionally, if we can, I’ll ask them to plant and water mustard seeds. I enjoyed doing that as a child. I’m sure they will too!
Join the programme!
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME. The next edition of the programme will be held in August.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Looking Back at Another Reading Programme
I love sharing stories with children, and this time’s batch of seven and eight-year-olds was even more fun than most. With each workshop I conduct, I treasure the stories we create together. The little anecdotes, the bubbles of laughter, the wide-eyed astonishment – these make workshops special! I wrote about a class where we spoke about monitors and Maya in a Mess; that was just the first of four books we read together, and each one brought joy.
One of the activities we did with the book was to try to keep something safe for six weeks. Maya loses the cupboard key. How about the children at my workshop?
During the first class, I asked them to find something smaller than the hole in the hOle book, wrap it in paper and keep it safe. I did it too, as you can see, and the paper has my name and the date on it.
During the last class, I asked them to show their little treasures to me, and nearly all of them had kept their ‘little thing’, as we all called it, safe!
Spellbound! by Nalini Sorensen was fantastic fun. We made up magic words and had all kinds of conversations.
“Why is the pimple on Weyona’s nose red on the cover? What mood is she in?”
“Does Oat-Penguin Oil really contain penguins?”
“Why didn’t they show us a picture of Weyona after her annual bath?”
Nalini was kind enough to answer the first two questions for us. As for the third, I asked the children to send me pictures!
– Zayn
– Sohum
It’s amazing how much fun we can pack into two hours of class time because this is just the tip of the iceberg!
Our third book was The Absent Author, and this was was delightful. For me, reading programmes are about having fun. In the story, we have a character called Ruth Rose who always dresses from top to toe in a single colour. So, we did that. We chose the colour green – because the absent author’s favourite colour is green, because the story takes place in Green Lawn and for other reasons I shall not reveal. It was such fun!
I loved the guesses the children made as we read on and the mischief in the faces of those who’d already read the whole book. A few snippets:
“It shouldn’t be kidnapped, right? It should be adult-napped!”
“If they want to check if the author actually came to the hotel, why don’t they just look at the CCTV footage?”
“The book was published in 1997, so they would not have had CCTV cameras!”
“What? No CCTV?”
“But cameras were there in 1997. Why didn’t they have CCTV?”
Of course, we also created detective clubs of our own. How could we not?
One child created the Thriving Three – comprising his parents and him. Another said her club consists of her dog and her, and anyone else who wants to join would need to do a test. Yet another created the Lime and Lemon Detective Agency. I promised to pass on their coordinates to anyone who had a mystery that needed solving!
The fourth book we read was Book Uncle and Me. For most of them, it was their first book in verse. They took a while to wrap their heads around it, but it was fun!
As Book Uncle has the BEST recommendations ever, I asked the children to create a list of books for me – books they think I should read. Here are a few they suggested that I have not read yet!
The next edition of my reading programme is here! This time, we’re going to read The Monster Hunters, Bookasura, Esio Trot and At Least a Fish. On popular demand, I have not one, but two batches of this programme – a weekday batch and a weekend one. Children from Mumbai, Surat, Chennai, Hyderabad and Idukki (which I had not even heard of!) have signed up so far. Join them?
Fantastic Mr Fox
Fantastic Mr Fox is a classic. And the combination of Roald Dahl and Sir Quentin Blake is magic.
I’ve never yet chosen a Roald Dahl for my reading programme because I reckoned that most children would already have been exposed to his books, and a book club is about discovering books you haven’t read before. Yet, as I mulled over what to include this time, I asked myself, again, what the purpose of a reading programme is. Often, I use the tagline ‘Celebrate the joy of reading’. If it’s about the joy of reading, how can I not include books I’ve adored and devoured as a child?
Rereading Fantastic Mr Fox now, I’m astounded at how much I liked it when I was younger. I was never one to like disgusting humour. I didn’t like toilet jokes. I didn’t like anything that was yucky. What made Dahl different?
I think, possibly, it was the fact that the disgust was not the point of the story. Also, when Mr Fox and family are so dapper, the whole thing made sense in my neat and orderly universe.
At my reading programme, I’m going to explore all this. I’m going to explore why I loved Dahl as a child and why I still admire his books today.
Literary Devices
This reading programme has a strong element of creative writing. With Dahl, there’s so much we can do to play with figurative language!
- Fantastic Mr Fox
Boggis, Bean and Bunce - thin as a pencil
dead as a dumpling
What better way to understand and explore language and wordplay?
Animal Stories
I would love to say that all children love animal stories, but I am wary of generalising. I do know, however, that practically every child I’ve met loves animal stories.
Though this is not a full-fledged writing programme, I do introduce the concept of genres. Animal stories can take so many different forms. I’ve worked with The Sheep-Pig before; it’s time to do Fantastic Mr Fox. My head is exploding with ideas of written activities we could do – anthropomorphic characters, environment stories, traditional tales of wit … Let’s see what the children come up with!
Humour and Disgust
Humour is close to impossible to teach. Often, when we begin to dissect humour, it is no longer funny. At the same time, however, I think conversations about humour are enlightening.
Why do some things appeal to us while others appeal to someone else? Is there a clear distinction between quirky and odd? Can anyone identify what humour is all about or understand how disgust is linked both to humour and to horror?
Join the programme!
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME. The next edition of the programme will be held in August.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Workshops Launching in May and June 2021
I’ve received an overwhelming number of queries this time around, and I’m not surprised. Summer holidays! Registrations are now open for two reading programmes beginning on the 1st of June.
Do note that with lockdowns in several places, book deliveries are experiencing delays. I will try to get the books to you in time for the programme, but the sooner you register, the easier it will be for me.
Online Reading Programme (Ages 7 to 8)
We’re on the fourth edition of this programme, and the four books we will read this time are The Monster Hunters by Parinita Shetty, Bookasura by Arundhati Venkatesh, Esio Trot by Roald Dahl and At Least a Fish (Zain & Ana Book 1) by Anushka Ravishankar.
On popular demand, I have also launched a weekend batch of the same online reading programme!
Details
Dates: 1st June to 9th July 2021
Dates for the weekend batch: 29th May to 17th July 2021
Online interactions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 3-3:45pm (12 online interactions)
or
Saturdays, 2-3pm (8 online interactions) –
Age-group: 7-8 years
Early bird offer (until the 15th of May): ₹3,500
Fee: ₹4,000
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME. The next batch will begin in August.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Earlier Programmes
Online Reading Programme (Ages 9 to 10)
Here’s the second edition of my online reading programme for ages 9-10! There is no weekend batch for this programme. It is six weeks long and involves 12 video interactions. However, instead of reading four books together, we read just three. This is because one session every two weeks is devoted to exercises that introduce creative writing, closely linked to the books we read.
This time’s books are Moin and the Monster, Fantastic Mr Fox and The Very Glum Life of Tootoolu Toop.
Details
Dates: 1st June to 9th July 2021
Online interactions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 4-4:45pm
Age-group: 9-10 years
Early bird offer (until the 15th of May): ₹4,500
Fee: ₹5,000
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME. The next batch will begin in August.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Earlier Programmes
Writing about Cyber Crime
What a fun session we had with digital forensic investigator Shweta A. Chawla yesterday! The children had all kinds of questions, and all kinds of stories. Nearly every child had a story of a parent or relative receiving a call and asking for an OTP or bank details. It just shows you how close cyber crime is to us!
One child said, “We should keep changing our passwords, but it’s difficult to remember them. So I write them in an Excel sheet.” Before Shweta could respond, he said, “The Excel sheet is password protected.”
And I found myself thinking, Do I even know how to create a password-protected Excel sheet?
We spoke of how stories no longer need masked robbers going into banks with guns, and the fact that you are much more likely to encounter a hacker online than a smuggler. Sure, we love our Enid Blyton stories of smuggling and crime, but perhaps stories can reflect something much more accessible – a criminal working from home, just like the rest of us.
Finally, if we create a character who is a digital investigator, what would that investigator’s line of thought be? What questions does the investigator ask to start tracing the criminal?
Character motivations, procedures, forensics, passwords – we learned so much during the session!
This was just the first of three sessions planned for this writing programme. Mark your calendars for the next one, which will be on the last Saturday of May. Registrations will open shortly, but here’s a teaser – we’ll be talking about pirates during this one!
Books and Important Conversations
No, I don’t believe that every book needs to teach us something. Absolutely not. I read to laugh, have fun and unwind. Yet, every so often, I come across a book that invites discussion and makes me think.
At my reading programme for ages 9 and 10, we’re reading Flying with Grandpa. Yesterday, we were to read the section where Grandpa refuses to eat. He makes a fuss and keeps banging his fork on the table.
I paused as I reread this section in preparation for my reading session. The children at my book club had clearly said that they had never encountered adults behaving like children. The idea, to them, was absurd. I knew we needed to have a conversation – about dementia, Alzheimer’s and growing old. There would be no better time than this, but how could I go about it?
A Story
I lost my grandfather six years ago. He was a remarkable man, a retired Air Vice Marshal, whom I respected and loved.
In 2015, he when my sister Nisha and I went to visit my grandparents in Coimbatore, he was already declining – and rapidly. It was frightening and saddening at the same time.
One day, the two of us were sitting on the bed, talking together, and my grandfather paused at the doorway. He stared and demanded of my grandmother, “Who are those two?”
“The children!” replied my grandmother, horrified.
“What children?”
“Nisha and Varsha – our grandchildren!”
“Oh.”
Even with that response, we knew that grandfather had no idea about us. He was confused, but he just let it go.
Thoughts and Explorations
We encountered just brief moments of confusion, but it isn’t the same for everyone. Plus, neither Nisha nor I was a child when this happened.
How do we talk to children about dementia? How do we build empathy and prevent them from ridiculing the idea of an adult forgetting how to eat?
As I thought about all of these, I discovered video after video on how to explain Alzheimer’s to children. Here are a couple I used:
The length of the first video is perfect! To introduce what dementia is in a sensitive, gentle way, I think it works very well.
The second video is lovely too, though slightly long to share with children. I did use parts of it because it’s clear and has a person who is sundowning explaining what Alzheimer’s does to people.
And finally, books. I wrote about Where’s Grandma?, a book I learned about from Maria Alessandrino at the AFCC four years ago.
In their own gentle ways, books prepare us for what can be. At my reading session yesterday, I showed the children pictures from Where’s Grandma? and we continued to read Flying with Grandpa.
When we reached the section where Xerxes helps his Mamavaji to eat, I think there was just a little more understanding, a little more empathy. And that made me more than a little glad.
Writing about Cyber Crime
During my writing programme last year, I met many children who wanted to write detective stories. What would a detective story involve? How did investigations really happen?
This got me thinking.
What could I do that would be new and unusual? I’ve never solved a crime. I have no inside knowledge. And if children (and I!) don’t want to write about smugglers and private islands and the like, what detective stories can we write?
My answer was cyber crime. And that led to the very first guest session of my creative writing programme.
About the Facilitator
Shweta A. Chawla is an independent digital forensic investigator with over 15 years of experience in digital forensic and cyber investigations. She is the founder and chief investigator at SC Cyber Solutions, and has acted as consultant to various police departments in investigations into cyber crimes. Shweta is a member of the prestigious, international High Technology Crime Investigation Association, as well as of the Cyber-investigation Analysis Standard Expression (CASE) community.
Writing about Cyber Crime
- What is a cyber investigator?
- How do I write a story about a cyber detective?
- What do we mean by digital forensics?
As this is a guest session at my writing programme, participants who are part of my current batches will be part of it at no additional cost. However, this session is also open to non-participants on payment of a fee of ₹400.
Workshops During a Pandemic
Last week, I started reading Maya in a Mess with my book club for seven and eight-year-olds. As part of the discussion, I asked them, “Have you ever been a monitor in class? How do you feel?”
“I feel like a king!” said one child.
“I love it,” said another. “You don’t have to just stand in line with the others. You can actually do things.”
“It feels good,” said a third. “You feel responsible.”
One avid reader in the batch isn’t seven yet, but she’s at par with the others. When it was her turn, she said, “I haven’t ever been a monitor.”
“Do you want to be a monitor?” I asked.
There was a minuscule pause.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to proper school. When I was in kindergarten, we didn’t have monitors. Last year, it was all online. So I don’t know what it would be like to be a monitor.”
My heart broke just a tiny bit.
I’ve never been to proper school.
Sigh.
Book Uncle and Me
I discovered verse novels quite recently. I began by reading a few for young adults and then I slowly went down the age ladder. I love them. I love how much they say with such few words.
Would I have enjoyed verse novels as a child? I have no way of telling, for I was such a mix. I liked things that were familiar, so it is possible that I would have rejected them out of hand as weird. On the other hand, I was never a fan of long paragraphs, so I don’t know.
I do know, though, that I want to introduce young readers to this form, and Book Uncle and Me is ideal.
Yasmin has a mission. She wants to read a book a day for the rest of her life, and she has accomplished this for over a year thanks to Book Uncle, who not only runs a free lending library but also recommends the best books. One day, however, Yasmin discovers that Book Uncle is packing up. He’s been told he needs a permit to run his little enterprise. What can Yasmin do? Will all the books she’s read help her find a solution?
Through Yasmin, we live the life of a young reader, determined to devour one story after another. And through her, we learn about the power of the individual as well as the power of a group. Yet, like any good story, Book Uncle and Me is not about what we learn from the book. Rather, it is about what the book makes us feel and how it makes us think. What better book could one read at a book club?
Here’s what I plan to do with the book at my reading programme.
Book Lists
Book Uncle shares wonderful book recommendations with Yasmin, which help her discover stories she loves. A book club is the best place for children to create book lists for one another. What books would be on your “must read” list? What books make you want to read more and more and more? At the end of the programme, I hope to have at least seven (I have seven registrations so far) brand-new lists of books to read!
Neighbours
I love the descriptions of all those who live in Yasmin’s building! From the newly-weds to the gentleman who plays the ghatam, we meet a host of interesting characters.
So, it’s time to get creative. Who do you think would be an interesting neighbour to have? Do you think you are an interesting neighbour? Do you have neighbours who make you curious or annoyed?
What would you save?
Children today grow up with the idea of needing to save the world. They know they must close taps, switch off lights and reduce plastic. What else is important to them? The question will lead to all kinds of discussions, I’m sure. What is in danger? Are libraries in danger? What about bookstores? Do these need saving? How?
I hope to start this conversation by asking children to draw a map of their neighbourhood to build an understanding of the environment that makes us who we are and helps us grow. Which parts of their locality go unnoticed? Which ones are important?
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Book Uncle and Me is the fourth book we will be reading at my reading programme for ages seven and eight.
Wisha Wozzariter
Wisha Wozzariter.
Say it aloud.
Wisha Wozzariter was what pushed me to launch this reading programme!
Several parents have called to ask if my online creative writing programme is suited to children who want to begin the process of writing. The answer is ‘no’ because, for the most part, the children who enroll already enjoy writing. They write regularly and don’t find written assignments a chore. For children who don’t already write, the course could be daunting, and the last thing I want to do is to put children off writing altogether!
So I wanted something that would introduce creative writing in smaller, more accessible chunks. And just as I was thinking about it, I came across Wisha Wozzariter.
Wisha wants to be a writer. When she reads a book she loves – like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – she thinks, “Now that’s a book I could have written.”
Enter Bookworm, who asks the all-important question – “Well, then, why don’t you?”
And so, a wonderful journey begins, a journey that takes Wisha to the Marketplace of Ideas, the Superhero Salon and the Bargain Bazaar. With Wisha, we explore protagonists and antagonists, form, structure, style and inspiration. If this isn’t the ideal book to introduce creative writing, I don’t know what is!
Elements of a Story
What goes into the writing of a story? Wisha wishes she was a writer. What stops her?
We’ll read this book slowly, talking about the imagination that went into the writing of the story and the ways in which these ideas are linked to our own journeys as writers. Can we have a story without a villain? What do we mean by form? When do we need to flesh out a story and when do we need to cut it down?
What if...?
What if is one of the best ways to begin a story, especially when you’re stuck for ideas. A popular way of looking at many of Disney’s movies is with the question ‘what if’. What if cars had feelings? What if toys had feelings? What if feelings had feelings?
Each of these questions became a movie!
With Wisha Wozzariter, we’ll discuss a few more ‘what if’ questions. What if your protagonist was a mouse? What if you were all alone in an imaginary world? I look forward to seeing where these questions take us!
Write a Story
Since this is the last book we will be reading together, we will work on the actual writing process too. It’s easy to have ideas.
It’s a little less easy to jot these down.
The most challenging is to get these ideas together and write the first draft of a story. Let’s see what we can achieve together!
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The Absent Author
The Absent Author. The Bald Bandit. The Haunted Hotel. The Zombie Zone. Isn’t this the kind of series you could see any child longing to collect?
Book series are special and that’s why, for each reading programme, I try to introduce at least one. They’re sure shot ways of getting children hooked to reading! During my first reading programme, I introduced the hOle books with Trouble with Magic. During the second, it was the Amelia Bedelia series. Now, it’s the A to Z Mysteries.
Dink invites his favourite author, Wallis Wallace, to Green Lawn, and joy of joys! He receives a note from the author accepting the invitation! Unless he’s kidnapped, Wallis Wallace promises to come to the Book Nook and meet Dink and his friends. When he doesn’t show up, Dink has a mystery on his hands – the mystery of the absent author!
Meticulously, Dink, Josh and Ruth go through Wallis Wallace’s itinerary, trying to figure out when exactly the author was kidnapped. Step by step, they examine clues and investigate. Where could Wallis Wallace be?
Puzzles
Solving a puzzle is among the most satisfying things in the world. Isn’t that what draws us to detective stories? All the clues are right there in front of our eyes.
Dink, Josh and Ruth solve the mystery of the absent author in a simple, systematic way. We’ll do a puzzle or two too – a jigsaw puzzle, a simple logic puzzle and a word puzzle!
Journaling
The three young detectives solve the mystery successfully because they have with them a detailed itinerary that Wallis Wallace was supposed to follow. This is the perfect prompt to get children to write about their own days. How do they spend their days? I’ll be giving them a template that they can fill in and send back to me. Journaling is a lovely way to be more attentive, and to start the process of writing for fun.
Setting up a club
As a child, I read so many books by Enid Blyton that I set up more clubs than I could count. I even set up clubs where I was the sole member so that I could have meetings with myself! Dink, Josh and Ruth are a gang of detective kids much like the ones I read about as a child. As we’re reading the book together at a book club, let’s have fun! We’ll think of a name for the club, perhaps make badges. I can’t wait to see what the children come up with!
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Playing with Kangaroo Words
When I wrote about using Friends Behind Walls for my online reading programme, the first thing I thought of doing was playing with words. Putti loves breaking words up to make sense of them. Brouhaha = brew+haha, but has nothing to do with brewing tea or being funny.
Yesterday, we thought of words like this. We thought of ‘unfortunately’ and ‘perspective’, as we hunted for humorous ideas.
“Is ‘guin’ a word?” one child asked me. Of course he wanted to do something with what a penguin is not.
One idea led to another and we came to kangaroo words. I’m not good at coming up with these, but I love the idea! A kangaroo word is one that carries a synonym of itself in the word.
We discussed just a handful in class – masculine contains the word male, blossom contains the word bloom, chicken contains the word hen. “I know this is difficult,” I told the children, “but see if you can think of another kangaroo word for yourself!
All the while, I could think of not one word myself.
By the end of class, an eight-year-old piped up, “Miss, miss! I thought of one! Instructor! It contains the word tutor!”
Do you see why I love my reading programme so much?
I did read up about kangaroo words before I conducted this session. If you’d like to discover more words, here are two sites I visited:
Flying with Grandpa
I read Flying with Grandpa some time ago and enjoyed it. I wanted to read it with children, but had not yet figured out how. The book is slightly difficult for ages seven and eight, the age-group I was working with.
When parents started asking me about writing programmes for readers who are reluctant writers, the seed of an idea took root. A reading programme with smaller elements of creative writing would be perfect – and there! I had the perfect setup to read Flying with Grandpa!
Xerxes wants to be like his grandfather, his beloved Mamavaji, but his mother has other plans for him. She wants him to be like JRD Tata. She is fierce and determined, pushing Xerxes to do things the correct way all the time.
But his strict mother is just one of Xerxes’s problems. His classmates tease him, calling him ‘Xerox, Xerox’. When his Navjote approaches, they make up a rhyme about not caring a jot about his Nav Jot.
What can Xerxes do to be happy? He doesn’t feel like he belongs with the others in his class. His mother is stern and proper, and he can’t even spell her profession. He just wants to be with his grandpa, who, his mother says, is a bad influence. Can he make sure that he isn’t separated from his Mamavaji? How?
Working with Diverse Characters
Recently, I was asked to judge a creative writing competition. I read 16 stories in all, and in four of them, the lead character was called Mary. I also encountered Brenda, Julian, Olivia and Andrew. For the most part, the stories with Indian settings had a clear moral and a fable-like writing style.
I’ve written before about why this happens, but first, it comes down to what children read. If entertaining stories are overwhelmingly about Laura and James, those are the characters that find their way into what we write. The more we read about diverse characters, the likelier we are to write about them.
A book like Flying with Grandpa is a wonderful place to begin a conversation about diversity and then go on to creating a unique character without a whitewashed identity.
Write What You Know (And Research What You Don't)
‘Write what you know’ is one of the basic tenets of writing, and it’s important to discuss this with children who set out on their writing journeys. I’ve had children set their stories in Pennsylvania, only to spell it Pencilvania (without trying to be humorous). I’ve had stories about boys called Margaret living in Italy. Fantasy is great, imagined worlds are wonderful, but when we’re writing, we need to be aware of how we use characters that have backgrounds unfamiliar to us. Similarly, when we create the setting, if we want it to come alive, we need to begin with something believable – and not set a story in Zaire, South America. (I’m not making this up.)
Book Discussion
Everything about the reading programme isn’t about writing. I want there to be space for the participants to discuss anything the book freely. Participant-led sessions are wonderful because they lead to so many conversations about what we like and dislike, as well as what we think about literature in general. I want to have fun with the book too, creating alternative endings, and using the pictures in the book as writing prompts.
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The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula
The first edition of my online reading programme for ages 9 and 10 is here! For a while, I’ve had queries from parents about children who love reading but don’t know how to get started on their writing journeys. They want to write, but they don’t know what to do or how to go about it. I began mulling over it. Would a writing workshop help? Perhaps it would, but I felt that beginning on familiar ground – reading – would work better. And so, here it is – my first reading programme for this age-group.
What better way to begin than with a book by Asha Nehemiah? I began my first reading programme for younger children with her Trouble with Magic, and we loved it. The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula is similar in so many ways, but still entirely different.
Someone is trying to steal Malu Paati’s secret hair oil formula. It is a special formula indeed, one that requires knowledge of a special script and much interpretation and tweaking thereafter. When Maalu Paati is invited to a Herbologists’ convention, she must figure out how to keep her formula safe, even as she crosses treacherous waters full of people out to get her.
A delicious combination of hilarity and suspense, The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula has so much to offer to young writers!
Ideas to work with: Plotting, Humour and Character Creation
How do we keep readers engaged through a story? How can we figure out how much is too much? Are there any standard formulas to follow?
None of these questions has foolproof answers, but investigating ideas through the structure of a book like The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula promises to be fulfilling.
Discussing what we find funny is interesting too. While some children thoroughly enjoy silliness and humour, others find it pointless. How can we decide what and how to write?
This book is full of all kinds of crazy, enterprising characters. How do we create vivid characters that stand out?
Writing Activities and Prompts
The point of a workshop is to work together on a piece of writing. Though the scope of this programme is necessarily narrower than that of my writing programme, we will work on small written exercises linked to the book, creating new characters and attempting to flesh them out.
Please do note, however, that the participants will not be given access to the forum to share work and will not be engaging in long written exercises that require detailed feedback and edits.
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Maya in a Mess
It seems to have become something of a tradition to begin each batch of my online reading programme with a hOle book. For the third edition of my programme, it’s going to be Maya in a Mess, a delightful book that made me chuckle. Peopled with sparkling characters, this book is ideal for ages seven and eight, so how could I not include it in my programme?
Maya is the cupboard monitor. The proudest moment of her life is when she is entrusted with the key to the class cupboard. The pride! The honour! The triumph!
I remember the moment oh-so-clearly, and how could I not feel what Maya feels?
Now, you can imagine what the mess is, can’t you?
Discussion
Responsibility is serious business! What was the greatest thing you were entrusted with? What do you do when you make a mistake? How do you think people would react if you lost something precious?
Activity
What makes a reading programme different from independent reading? The things we do together!
For Maya in a Mess, I hope to do an activity where the children try to keep something safe. This requires a little work, but there’s so much we can do with the idea! I will ask them to pick up a pebble, paint it and send me a picture. During the very last class at the end of six weeks, I wonder how many of them will be able to show me their pebbles.
Word Play
Maya in a Mess
Love Like That
Puppies in the Pantry
Timmi in Tangles
What other alliterative phrases would make good book titles?
Playing with sounds is always fun. I hope to make children come up with a book title and create a book cover for their unwritten story.
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Past the Halfway Mark
Four books in six weeks – that’s what my current online reading programme involves. And just like that, four weeks have gone by. If I make participants reflect on their journeys with me, I suppose it is because I enjoy the process of reflection myself. Each time I look back, I find myself nodding slowly at some new learning, some new revelation.
Now, at just past the halfway mark, I can’t stop thinking about reading tastes and how much they differ.
“I’m a cheetah reader,” a child said proudly, referring to our second book, Hungry to Read.
“Me too!”
“Me too!”
“I’m a Bull!” said another.
Where I thought children would resent being categorized into ‘cheetah’, ‘bull’ and ‘snail’, they loved the idea!
With Amelia Bedelia, I rediscovered how enjoyable learning can be. I usually dislike linking reading with learning – it’s done too often and puts children (and me!) off.
But with wordplay, when children learn something new, the pleasure they get from reading increases. As we encountered a wild-goose chase, a piece of cake and a pink slip, we explored the madness of words and what they can mean.
“Do you know every single idiom?” a child asked me.
When I shook my head, he asked, “Then how do you know all these?”
Honestly? I don’t know. Probably because I read and love words. The joy of reading with children lies in watching their faces light up as they understand more idioms, make links and discover humour.
In the past four weeks, we’ve made book covers, created recipes and written poems and book reviews. Two weeks to go, and then a break before the next edition begins!
Registrations are open for all my reading and writing programmes launching in April. I’m also launching a brand-new batch – a reading programme for ages nine and ten. Explore all the upcoming events here.
Workshops Launching in April 2021
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR ALL THESE PROGRAMMES.
The next reading programmes begin in the first week of June, and the next writing programmes will be held in October. I will also organise three short guest sessions as part of my writing programme. These will be free for those who are part of the programme, but will also be open to non-participants on payment of a fee. More details coming soon!
If you would like to receive email notifications about my workshops, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Online Reading Programme
Many parents with children in the age-group 7-8 expressed interest in my writing programmes, which made me think about what I could do with such young children. For a writing programme to be meaningful, I feel that children need to be a little older. At the same time, the wider the range of books they are exposed to, the better they will write. Among other things, this made me come up with the online reading programme – a book club that involves reading, writing and all kinds of activities.
Starting April 2021, I will also be conducting a similar programme for older children – children in the age-group 9-10.
Ages 7-8
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
The third edition of my online reading programme for ages 7-8 begins on the 2nd of April 2021. The four books we will read together are Maya in a Mess by Meera Nair, Spellbound by Nalini Sorensen, The Absent Author (A to Z Mysteries Book 1) by Ron Roy and Book Uncle and Me by Uma Krishnaswami.
Details
Dates: 2nd April to 11th May 2021
Online interactions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 3-3:45pm
Age-group: 7-8 years
Workshop fee: ₹4,000
Do note that the cost of the books is no longer included in the fee (UPI: seshanvarsha@okhdfcbank or bank transfer – contact me for details)
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Earlier Programmes
Ages 9-10
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
The first edition of my online reading programme for ages 9-10 is here! Just like for the younger ones, the programme is six weeks long and involves 12 video interactions. However, instead of reading four books together, we will read just three. This is because one session every two weeks will be devoted to exercises that introduce creative writing, closely linked to the books we read.
The books we will read during this edition of the online reading programme are The Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula by Asha Nehemiah, Flying with Grandpa by Madhuri Kamat and Wisha Wozzariter by Payal Kapadia.
Details
Dates: 2nd April to 11th May 2021
Online interactions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 4-4:45pm
Age-group: 9-10 years
Workshop fee: ₹5,000
Do note that the cost of the books is no longer included in the fee (UPI: seshanvarsha@okhdfcbank or bank transfer – contact me for details)
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Online Creative Writing Programmes
My online creative writing programmes are conducted just twice a year – in April and in October. Each course is 12 weeks long and comprises twelve online interactions and access to a private, secure forum, where participants share work and provide feedback to one another. In this sense, it is an intensive programme that requires participants to log in at least four times a week, write regularly and participate actively on the forum. In addition to weekly assignments, participants are encouraged to share relevant ideas and opinions at each stage.
If I have a minimum of four participants for each batch, I also organize guest sessions, which are open to non-participants on payment of a registration fee, but free for those who are part of my programmes. Take a look at the three guest sessions I organized during the previous edition of the creative writing programme:
Ages 9-11
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
The next course for the age-group 9-11 begins on the 5th of April. The online interactions will be held each Monday from 4pm to 5pm.
Outline
- Experiments with poetry – While we will begin with rhyming verse, we will move on to exploring different kinds of poetry, working with form, content and structure
- Plays – Working with drama is a wonderful way to start working on crisp dialogue and clear setting. We will read a play and look at the creation of characters and dialogue
- Stories – The best way to write a good story is to write many stories! We will work with technique, structure, dialogue and plotting as we explore different genres of writing.
Details
Dates: 5th April to 28th June 2021
Online interactions: Mondays, 4-5pm
Age-group: 9-11 years
Workshop fee:
- Early bird fee: ₹13,500 per head (valid until the 15th of March)
- Buddy fee: Register with one or more friends and pay ₹12,500 per head
- Regular fee: ₹15,000 (16th of March onwards)
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Earlier Editions
I launched my online creative writing programme in October 2020 and received a wonderful response. Take a look at what some of the children said when they reflected on the programme!
Ages 12-14
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
The next course for the age-group 12-14 begins on the 7th of April. The online interactions will be held each Wednesday from 4pm to 5pm.
Outline
- Poetry – What makes a poem a poem? We’ll choose a few kinds of poetry and work with them in an attempt to open up our understanding of poetry.
- Plays – A quick look at the history of drama is a great way to explore how art is used as entertainment. What goes into writing for theatre? How would this be different from the way we write for screen?
- Stories – Activities around writing keep young (and not-so-young) writers inspired and excited. As we explore genres of fiction, we will work on both mentor-led and learner-led activities to work actively on structure, technique, characters and plot.
Details
Dates: 7th April to 30th June 2021
Online interactions: Wednesdays, 4-5pm
Age-group: 12-14 years
Workshop fee:
- Early bird fee: ₹13,500 per head (valid until the 15th of March)
- Buddy fee: Register with one or more friends and pay ₹12,500 per head
- Regular fee: ₹15,000 (16th of March onwards)
REGISTRATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR THIS PROGRAMME.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Writing Workshops I've Conducted in the Past
I’ve been conducting writers’ clubs since 2015, so exploring the Workshops page would give you a gist of the activities I conduct. During the previous edition of the online creative writing programme, a few participants reflected on their journeys as writers. Take a look.
Additionally, here are a few posts that will give you a rough idea of how my creative writing workshops work:
Online Reading Programme – Looking Back
Magic potions.
Superpowers. Word games.
Adjectives, homophones, homonyms, mazes.
Codes, recitation, performance.
What fun my first reading programme was!
The first book we read together was Trouble with Magic by Asha Nehemiah. A reading programme involves more than simply reading the book, though, so we used our imaginations. What would we get if we put different ingredients together? A medicine? A magic potion? An explosion?
Each of the children came up with something different, and it was such fun! Take a look at just one of them.
Our second book was Shrinking Vanita by Manjula Padmanabhan. Apart from word games, where we attempted to unscramble words from the book, we created our own superheroes. What if everyone suddenly shrinks to half their size? What superpower would you need to save the world?
And on the other hand, what if you could stretch your body infinitely? What special things could you do to help other people?
Our third book was The Sheep-Pig by Dick King-Smith, a childhood favourite. Babe the sheep-pig has to follow a specific set of instructions in order to win the sheep-dog trials. Reading and following instructions, the children followed a path too, determining how a dog would herd the sheep to their pen.
We also worked with adjectives. How would you describe Babe? What characteristics come to mind when you think of the sheep-pig?
The last book we worked with was Manya Learns to Roar. This was the book where we had the most interaction, as children deciphered the code at the beginning of each chapter. They wrote their names in code and figured out the notes inside the book. We had such fun!
Instead of a ‘come as a character’ activity, I had each of them recite a poem. One child did such a lovely, dramatic recitation of ‘I opened a book’ by Julia Donaldson. I loved another child’s performance too, but I cannot remember much of the poem except that it was a lot like ‘Sick’ by Shel Silverstein.
And that’s the end of my first reading programme; watch out for the next one!
Amelia Bedelia Means Business
Amelia Bedelia. The name just asks you to read it aloud. And what a character Amelia is! As with the very best fictional characters (I’m thinking of Anne Shirley, Pippi Longstocking and the like), Amelia’s personality leaps out of the pages. She makes you chuckle at her sheer optimism, at her zest and her drive. Obstacles? What are those?
Amelia sees Suzanne’s new bike and knows she has to get one for herself. But her parents are unwilling to give her an advance Christmas-cum-birthday present. What they are willing to do, however, is meet her halfway. If she can find a way to pay half the price, they’ll pay the other half. Amelia and her father shake hands, and they have a deal.
The problem, though, is Amelia’s tendency to take things literally. Idioms are puzzling. Ways of speaking make no sense. So, when she’s working at a restaurant and a customer asks her for ‘a pie – and step on it’, what do you think she does?
I know that Amelia Bedelia Means Business is probably a little advanced for some children in this age group, but it’s so much fun that I’m sure we’ll enjoy it anyway! Here’s what I will do with it at my reading programme.
Idioms
I’ve done workshops on idioms before, but I now know that Amelia Bedelia Means Business is the perfect book to use even in the future to play with idioms. What do we mean by the following?
- I’ll meet you halfway.
- A lemon
- A pink slip
- A piece of cake
- Easy as pie
I’m sure discussing these will lead to hilarious exchanges!
Business Ideas
Children always have wonderful business ideas. How can they earn money? What would they do with money that they earn? Do they have a piggy bank? I think we can have so many intriguing conversations about money making!
Discussion
What do we do when we make a mistake? How frightening is failure? Amelia is one resilient character. She makes mistake after mistake and bounces back each time. A book like this creates a safe space for children to talk about their failures and mistakes, and what they did to move on.
Join my online reading programme
Registrations are now closed for this reading programme. Find out about the next one here.
If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Hungry to Read
If there was one thing that could push you to read, what would that be? How would you get someone who doesn’t like reading to read?
When Arjun’s teacher announces a competition in school, Arjun is thrilled – until he learns that it is a reading competition. He is no reader; he likes logic, facts and all things mathematical. The problem is that the prize is so attractive that Arjun is tempted. The question, though, is how far he is willing to go to help his class to win.
The reasons I chose Hungry to Read for my reading programme are very different from the reasons I chose every other book. More than having enjoyed the book, I love the possibilities it has when it comes to activities and conversations. Here is some of what I will do with the book.
Scavenger hunt
I love book scavenger hunts! We’ll do a quick one with this book, simply to start a conversation on the different kinds of books we read.
Book discussion
Some conversations need to happen time and time again if ever we want to move away from ideas of ‘girlie’ and ‘bad English’. Why does Arjun find a book about a princess too girlie? Why does Sheen get angry with Rio’s lack of fluency?
Language shaming is something I’ve written about in the past, and it finds its worst form when it comes to a language like English. Language shaming leaves deep impressions on children, and this is something I want children to think about. Gender stereotyping is something I have trouble with in books too, and I want conversations to happen around what constitutes ‘girlie’ and what is ‘boyish’. How much will seven- and eight-year-olds contribute to a conversation like this? I can only begin the conversation and find out!
How to pick a book
A book about a Read Drive is a wonderful way to introduce children to how to choose books. During the reading challenges at the British Library, I often found children picking the thinnest possible books so that they could easily get done with their quota of six books in six weeks. Other children, seeking to impress their teachers, chose the thickest book, paying no attention to whether it seemed interesting to them.
How do we choose a book? How can we pick something suited to our age, understanding and interest? I will use Hungry to Read to talk about it!
Join my online reading programme
Registrations are now closed for this reading programme. If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Lucky Girl
Lucky Girl is a hilarious book. It’s imaginative, wacky and full of surprises. Sumi is a lucky girl. With her pink bed, a window that overlooks the sea, soft toys and a chef for a mother, she must be a lucky girl, right?
Wrong.
As I chuckled my way through this hOle book written by Shabnam Minwalla and illustrated by Tanvi Bhat, I knew I had to work with it at my reading programme! Here are a few things I plan to do with the book.
Funny recipes
Pammi Gupta makes pumpkin peel muffins and furry leaf parathas for Sumi. Yuck! What kinds of things would you put together to make an imaginative meal? Would you eat the things you can see on the cover of the book? Once you know what the ingredients are, would you still eat them?
Poetry
Sumi takes part in a poetry writing competition organised by Fab Foods. Her friend Priya wants to write one kind of poem while she wants to write another kind. Can you write a short poem about some food that you like?
What’s in a name?
Depending on what recipe book Pammi Gupta is writing, she calls her daughter Sumangali something else.
Baby Dim Sum. Sumacaroni. Sushi.
I’m waiting for the children to play with their own names and come up with new and funny name extensions!
Join my online reading programme
Registrations are now closed for this reading programme. If you would like to receive email notifications when I launch new batches, please fill this form. Alternatively, follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – for regular updates.
Online Reading Programme – Second Edition!
Registrations are now closed for this reading programme.
I was just about halfway through my first reading programme when parents started reaching out to me to check if there will be other batches. Even when I launched the first one, I knew I would continue the programme if enough people expressed interest. And so, here it is – the second edition of my online reading programme!
What does a reading programme involve?
Essentially, reading.
As there are four books spread across 12 sessions, we take roughly three sessions per book. Naturally, this means that we do not read the entire book together. We read excerpts from the books together during each session, and then the children read in their own time before the following class. During each online interaction, we do not just read; we also imagine, create, play and talk. We do activities around the books and try to think about what will happen next. We review books, discussing which ones we like more and why.
Which books will we be working with?
This time, the four books I’m going to work with are:
- Lucky Girl – Shabnam Minwalla
- Amelia Bedelia Means Business – Herman Parish
- Hungry to Read – Arti Sonthalia
- Friends Behind Walls – Harshikaa Udasi
You could also take a look at the last four books we worked with – Trouble with Magic, Shrinking Vanita, The Sheep-Pig and Manya Learns to Roar.
Details
The details are all in the image above, but here they are once more.
Dates: 2nd February to 12th March 2021
Online interactions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 4-4:45pm
Age-group: 7-8 years
Workshop fee: ₹3,500 (UPI: seshanvarsha@okhdfcbank or bank transfer – contact me for details)
Important note: The books are included in the fee only if you register before the 25th of January. This is because I source books from independent bookstores close to you, as far as possible. This is both to support local bookstores and to save the environment by reducing the carbon footprint created by shipping books across the country when they’re available at the store next door!
Physical copies will be delivered anywhere in India.
My phone number is in the poster; please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions. And no, I don’t use WhatsApp.
Edited to add: Do note that the books are no longer included in the fee of ₹3,500. If you would like me to organize the books for you anyway, please get in touch.
How to register
My Year in Workshops – 2020
2020 was a tough year, such a tough year that it’s become rather redundant to say it. Many of us had to step out of our comfort zones and do things differently.
For me, of course, it was no different. For several years now, workshops have been my prime source of income. I’ve had my writers’ club at St. Mary’s School, teacher training sessions for Ratna Sagar, and the odd workshop here and there with libraries. When my fifth year at the Writers’ Club came to an end in February last year (was it really not even a year ago?), I was all set for a short vacation, before getting to work again. April and June are often busy months at Ratna Sagar. I conduct teacher training sessions all over the country, and so, I usually find myself travelling and working right through these months with few breaks in the middle. In fact, I already had workshops scheduled for May and June, so I was making plans around them, figuring out when to go to Bangalore, thinking about sessions around Sisters at New Dawn and Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells…
And everything came to a grinding halt.
What kept me going?
In the beginning, I think most of us just waited and watched. I didn’t know what to do, so I wrote as much as I could. Just like last year, I found wonderful, supportive online groups, where we shared information and experiences. I listened to writers talking about their journeys and editors discussing the effect of coronavirus on the publishing industry. Children’s writers also got together and did book readings, using the delightful hashtag #ThodaReadingCorona. I did one too, reading out a chapter of Sisters at New Dawn!
Soon, it was time to do more. Physical workshops were (and still are) out of the question, so I needed to move online. The release of Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells at this time was ideal, for I began to conduct online sessions for Scholastic as part of their virtual book fairs. I designed an online model that worked well, and slowly began to navigate all the challenges that surround virtual author interactions.
Often, I felt like I was talking into the void because many children keep their videos off. Yet, the process was rewarding. Thanks to the chat box, I found that children were less inhibited. They could just post their questions without stuttering, stammering or even showing their faces, and this got me thinking.
At school sessions, it is impossible to interact with everyone because of the sheer numbers of children. If I launched something on my own, I could do things differently. I’ve done more workshops than I can count, and I’m familiar with the technological space, so I had two arrows in my quiver already. My husband was more than willing to create a secure online forum for me, where children could share their work and give and receive feedback.
So, in the first week of October, I launched, with great trepidation, my online creative writing programme.
I had so many questions when I set out.
- Would the fee be acceptable to parents? I knew the kind of work I would put in because children would share writing on the forum every day. I had to provide meaningful feedback to each piece submitted.
- Would children stay engaged online when everything is now online?
- Would the forum appeal to children who are so familiar with online social interactions anyway?
- Would internet snags and technological problems keep cropping up?
Yet, I launched it. And I love it.
The stories, the poetry, the fun – nothing changes in the online model. It’s just as exciting as my writers’ club. In fact, I would say it’s more exciting because I have children from all over the country, and one child from another country too! Over and over again, I come across wonderful pieces of writing. Look at these, for instance!
As the writing programme went on, I began to notice how many parents with children in the age-group 7-8 wanted a creative writing course for their children. However, working online with children in that age bracket would be so challenging as to become meaningless. Yet, this got me thinking. I wouldn’t be a writer today if I hadn’t spent my childhood surrounded by books. I’ve also worked with the reading challenge at the British Library for several years and thought about all the things I would do differently. And so, I launched yet another programme – my online reading programme. I also decided to tie up with independent bookstores for it, and I’m so glad I did!
2021 promises to be full of activities. I’m not hopeful about offline workshops in the near future, but the online model is delightful, at least for me!
Look out for all workshop announcements on my blog, or on social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). To receive information about my reading and writing programmes via email, please fill this form.
Creating Memorable Characters with Sophie
And just like that, the third and last guest session for the current batches of my online writing programme is over. It doesn’t feel like very long ago that I announced the programme, wondering whether there would be enough participants. I did not promise guest sessions because I knew it would depend on the response I received. It needed to be feasible to invite guest speakers, both in terms of the number of participants and in terms of my ability to pay the speakers. But here we go, two batches for two age groups are nearly over!
Sophie’s writing workshop was my third guest session, and it was lovely. Sessions where I learn something about methodology are always extra special. For instance, Sophie worked with excerpts from the classics, something I’ve never imagined doing. She chose tiny sections from Persuasion, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The Lord of the Rings and Boy, amongst others, and she invited the participants to pay attention to the technique employed before putting it into practice themselves.
Importantly for me, she worked with representation and the problem with stereotypes. Whose voice gets heard in stories? How often do we write about someone from a different faith? Are disabled characters represented in literature? Are we guilty of using stereotypes when we describe our characters?
Especially with so many children consistently writing about white characters in Europe and America, I loved that she led a discussion about stories set in contexts that we know and the importance of researching contexts we don’t.
I’m already excited about the next batches of my creative writing programme, scheduled to launch in April! A few quick links:
- Find out more about the programme, the fee structure and the outline.
- Receive email notifications about upcoming reading and writing workshops.
- Read about the first guest session with Nalini Sorensen.
- Read about the second guest session with Dr. Sreeja Nag.
- Read excerpts of what participants have to say about the writing programme – reflection one and reflection two.
Workshop Anecdotes
So many little things happen during workshops! That’s what makes them so much fun.
For instance, my reading programme began on Tuesday and I started with Asha Nehemiah’s Trouble with Magic. We spoke about all the wonderful things we’d invent because, in some ways, science and magic are pretty much the same thing.
One child would invent a door. You step through the door and get to whatever place you want to go. You just have to tell the door where you’d like to be.
“And what trouble could you have with magic of this sort?” I asked.
The boy thought for a bit. “If you don’t speak clearly,” he said, very clearly. “You could end up in the wrong place.”
Another child invented this – a vacation machine! Do notice how machine is spelt. Also, I love that the key words are there. No more and no less!
At my writing programme yesterday, I had more fun. The children here are older and I wanted to start a conversation about how we choose names for our characters. I asked them to come up with a nickname for each of the others – including me, if they wanted. I’ve done this activity before and many children are often shy about giving me a nickname. But yesterday was all kinds of delightful.
One girl named me ‘Funsha’. She wanted to use my real name as the root and couple it with a characteristic she associates with me. Isn’t that just lovely?
There’s another girl called Vrinda in the batch, whom she renamed ‘Vrintresting’ because, well, she’s very interesting.
Another girl named me Mia.
After a horse.
She reddened as soon as she realised how that sounds, but quickly explained, “I go horse riding and I love that horse! She’s friendly, calm, patient and just … she reminds me of you!”
I’ve never been named after a horse before, and I certainly never expected to feel so delighted about it!
Creating Memorable Characters
Both batches of my online creative writing programme began in October. Two months out of three have flown by, and I can’t quite believe that I’ve had eight sessions with each batch. We’ve had two wonderful guest sessions too – one with author Nalini Sorensen and one with Dr. Sreeja Nag. It’s time to announce my third and last guest session for this batch, with a multicultural writer-friend, Sophie Gaden.
About the Facilitator
Sophie is a French-Brazilian writer, teacher, and translator. She spent her childhood in Brazil, but at the age of 12, she moved to India where she lived for eight years. As if three countries with three different cultures weren’t enough, she took another step across the world and graduated in English Literature and Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She is now based in London, writing poetry, translating, and teaching English at a secondary school. She is also a poetry translator at the Atelier do Centro in Sao Paulo.
Creating Memorable Characters
What are characters, really? Mysterious beings, figments of our imagination.
How do writers create characters? Why are some characters so memorable? What makes them unique?
Sophie will also be dealing with representation, addressing the need to be more inclusive in our stories. We’ll discuss ideas and explore techniques and activities that will help us imagine and create characters that stay with us long after we close the book.
Details
| Fee | ₹400 per head (UPI: seshanvarsha@okhdfcbank or bank transfer – please contact me for my bank details; my number is in the poster) |
| Age-group | 9-13 |
| Date | 19th December 2020 |
| Time | 4 pm to 5 pm IST |
How to register
This is a free event for all those who have registered for my online creative writing programme. Non participants may join this standalone workshop on payment of the registration fee of ₹400.
This workshop was held on the 19th of December. To be intimated about forthcoming workshops programmes in advance, please fill this form or follow me on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Science Stories with Sreeja
What a whirlwind weekend I’ve had! With the Scholastic Writing Awards ceremony, a guest session at my online creative writing programme, and a weekend workshop for the ten winners of the Scholastic Writing Awards, the weekend has flown by in the best possible way!
As with every guest session, yesterday was special. I’ve invited Sreeja before and I know how exciting conversations with her can be for a group of curious young writers. She’s exciting, warm and generous with her interactions, never dismissing a question or an idea out of hand. For instance, there was a moment yesterday when a child asked her, “Could there be mermaids on some other planet?”
Sreeja paused and then responded, “Why not?”
Sreeja is a scientist at NASA and also leads a team at a start-up that is building and deploying what could be the first self-driving robotic fleet on public roads. She has a PhD in Space Systems Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and studies space systems, space robotics for Earth observation, space traffic management, and vehicular robotics validation. That’s about as exciting as it gets for children interested in space stories.
Watching her interact with the creative writing students yesterday was wonderful. I enjoyed her session as much as – if not more than – the children.
As always, I was also struck by all the questions she was asked. Here are a few:
- Does NASA hire artists?
- How do astronauts sleep in space?
- How do they train to sleep in space?
- Don’t astronauts get bored of their jobs?
- Do you think a planet with huge oceans could have enormous creatures?
- Do astronauts ever argue when they’re on space missions?
- How do you get network at the International Space Station?
Guest sessions bring magic to the programme, and a NASA scientist? That’s all kinds of special.