I’m wrapping up an author tour in Korea, where I co-led a creative writing camp for ages 9-18 and delivered workshops to libraries and academies with fellow writers Stacey Matson and Greg Brown.
Even though I’ve been presenting and leading workshops for a long time, this was the first time since pre-covid that I’ve done this kind of intensive tour that involved multiple ages, language levels, and skillsets. I did a lot of planning in advance and I’m happy (relieved?) it all turned out. Because delivering an author presentation is one thing, but leading a workshop and sustaining interest over several hours (or days!) is a whole other kettle of spells . . .
Summer of the dragon
One of my strategies for this tour was to keep most of my content focused on a theme: Dragons. This allowed me to prepare (and pack!) a focused supply kit and presentation suite, which I adjusted for each group based on:
- The amount of time I had for the workshop
- The language level of the students
- The creative skillset of the students (typically not anything to worry about!)
Of course, I didn’t know about the students’ levels or interests until I was “on the ground”, but this theme was broad enough that it could allow me to pivot on the spot and expand or contract my planned activities.
Creative writing camp
Our week began with a seven-day intensive writing camp hosted by the Creative Writing Children Society in Yangpyeong, Korea. We had two groups of kids, 31 in all. For the older group I actually did not do anything connected to dragons. These were kids I knew well, having taught them via Zoom or in person over the years. That meant I could deliver quite a few experimental creativity projects, such as writing via lucid dreaming and creating sound art (I might write more about that experience in a future blog post).
For the younger group, it was dragon time. Over the week, I had them write a number of scenes in which a thief character is tasked to climb through the wilderness to seek a dragon’s lair and pluck a scale from the creature. This project involved an exploration of dragons throughout world mythology, an examination of character perspective (who does the reader sympathize with?), and even symbology (some students decided that the dragon is not a literal dragon, but a human character who has been mythologize as a dragon).
As part of this week, we crafted dragon scales and built kits for the thieves to take on their quests. Because we had so many days at our disposal, we had the time to do this sort of intensive craft.
We began by using pieces of plastic cut from a soda bottle and decorating them with stick-on acrylic jewels and/or glue from a low-temperature glue gun:
Next, we gave them a coat of mod podge, then painted them black:
The final step was painting with metallic colours. The results were amazing! Here are some of the kids’ projects:
Food, food, and more food!
We had a day off after camp and explored Gwangjang Market, one of Seoul’s oldest traditional markets. You can buy clothing, souvenirs, and all sorts of things here—but, really, it’s about the food. You can sit at a bench in front of one of the many stalls and sample gamjajeon hot off the grill—or many types of other fare. Basically, I adored this place!
Librarians are the best
Everyone who works in the writing biz could tell you how fabulous librarians are, and this is worldwide phenomenon in my experience! I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Juhee Song at her libraries in the past and this year I was invited back to do presentations with two groups, one for grades 1-3 and another for grades 4-6. The presentations were 60-80 minutes, which isn’t a lot of time, but I was still able to roll out an introduction and deliver some activities.
For the younger kids, I modified my activity to have them create an invitation to a dragon’s birthday party. This involved only a bit of writing, but a lot of visual literacy. They even created maps on the back of the invitations, showing the invitees how to get to the dragon’s house!
For kids who still needed something to do, I had them design the costumes for a mouse character that has been invited to the party—and needs something to wear.
Sidenote: Juhee showed me this book sanitation machine in the library! I’ve never seen anything like it.
Yeosu youth programming
Next, we took the KTX rail line to Yeosu, a beautiful town on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula. Yeosu is famous for food, but it’s also an important city in Korean history since it was here that Admiral Yi Sun-sin repelled the Japanese during the Joseon period. He was responsible for the so-called “Turtle boat”, an important factor in the success of the defense. (And look, there’s a dragon on the boat—right on theme.)
While there, we stayed in beautiful accommodation overlooking the city. Not only did I see a spectacular sunset, but the city puts on a nightly fireworks show and I was treated to a spectacular view of it.
I also got to sleep in a traditional way—on the floor. It wasn’t my first time to do this, but I was glad for the opportunity to do it again. We watch many K-dramas in our house, and we’re always watching the characters sleep in this fashion!
As for the workshops, it was more dragon-themed programming! The youngest group was quite challenging, since they were as young as five years old. Thankfully, my son is five, so I have a wealth of experience with that age group and I was able to lean heavily on the visual literacy aspect for those kids that struggled with English.
So, more birthday party invitations and, for the older kids, more quests up the mountain to steal an egg from a dragon.
Creativity at CORI
Our next event came at CORI learning center in Yongin, where we had two days of activities. Marilyn, the steward of CORI, developed a fantastic plan for us. Day 1 involved the mentors learning alongside the students, making some traditional crafts, such as ceramic designs for mirrors and keychains, and painting oil lamps. In between, while waiting things to dry, we led an activity in which the kids wrote a legend about a mirror. (This was a spur-of-the-moment thing that turned out really well!).
Day two at CORI was a solo event for me and I had several hours of programming to fill. There was no time to build anything, but I did give the kids some prebuilt thief kits and had them imagine what each item could do. We also created proclamations from an Emperess/Emperor who wanted an egg stolen from a dragon in the mountains. The students’ favourite part of the proclamation was giving them official steals using wax and embossing stamps.
We also wrote “mirror expressions”, in which the students pondered the emotions of two opposing characters, the thief and the dragon. By the afternoon, we had completed many writing projects that had served as clandestine brainstorming, setting them up perfectly to write a conventional story about a thief scaling the mountain to find the dragon.
Whew! What an incredible couple of weeks of creativity, company, and amazing food. I’m now looking forward to a few weeks off before diving into more creative writing programs in the fall.
Between the Cracks of Here and There 