Tween Author Boot Camp is partnering with Utah Valley University to bring you award-winning middle grade author instructor Heather Clark, and some amazing virtual guests—Newbery winning and New York Times bestselling authors—to make all your summer camp writing dreams come true! We’ve planned two weeks of engaging lessons, fun activities, and hands-on practice to light up your writer brain and grow your skills.
With the Online Access ticket to TwABC you get ALL instruction from Weeks 1 and 2 via live, Zoom Webinar with Heather Clark plus bonus on-demand classes from other authors.
Me? I’m going to be leading some live interactive mapping from my studio to demonstrate strategies for building mood and starting scenes with a bang (and possible a dragon egg).
Okay, full disclosure: my new studio isn’t completely ready. But the dragon eggs are on display, along with other things, and I’ll get as many artifacts added to the “authoreum” as possible before my event!
I wrapped up a writer-in-residency at a local school, Southpointe Academy, in April. It seems like a lifetime ago because, since then, my family has moved homes for the first time in eighteen years (more on that in a future post, I imagine!).
I’ve now had time to reflect on the residency and look back at some of the photos from my week at the school. We accomplished a lot of writing and storytelling!
I was asked to develop a plan for K-5 and so came up with a different project for each grade.
Kindergarteners: Costuming a Character
Grade 1s: Magical Boxes
Grade 2s: Enchanted Trees
Grade 3s: Secret Doorways
Grade 4s: A Spellbinding Shopping Trip
Grade 5s: Lost in the Library
I kicked off the week with one general presentation to the entire school, which allowed me to introduce myself—and my philosophy—so that I didn’t have to repeat this each time I visited the specific classrooms.
The fantastic aspect of a residency is that I get to spend multiple blocks with the same class. In general, the system was the same: enter the classroom, introduce the project with some brainstorming and scene starters, then follow up in additional sessions with more specific writing advice, presentation, and an in-depth Q & A.
Of course, the format was tweaked depending on the age.
Another positive to spending an entire week at the school was that I could set up my museum of artifacts in the library and students could come view them throughout the week for extra inspiration.
Finally, the school asked me to write a story about them during my time there and I did just that. This turned out to be a lot of fun, and I ended up writing about an imagined misadventure with the Grade 5 classroom’s mascot, Yorick the skeleton.
Afterward, I was happy to receive these kind words from Southpointe’s writing coordinator:
“Everyone at our school loved having Lee as our Author-In-Residence, as he is such an engaging and inspirational writer and teacher! He connected with all our students from K to Grade 5 who loved his fun, interactive workshops, which focused on making the writing process accessible to all! I would recommend Lee without hesitation.”
Verity Pritchard Southpointe Academy
More info about my residencies can be found on my website.
I’ve been fine-tuning my plan for my writer-in-residency that I’m doing at a school next week— five straight days with students K-5! We’ll be covering a range of topics and writing approaches, but one of the main goals for the visit will be to amplify overall creativity.
When it comes to my own writing process, one of my favourite ways to attack this is by mapping, and it’s something I bring to schools as well, either guiding students through a process on chart paper, a white board, or—if I’m presenting via Zoom or to a large audience in an auditorium—through a document camera.
This is a great way to generate ideas or for a writer to simply understand a space. Many of my young students (or even my teens) often craft scenes but leave the reader completely in the dark as to where it takes place (sometimes I don’t even know if the scene is inside or outside)! Mapping out a world, a building, or even a moment can make a real difference! More information about my author presentation, craft workshops, and residencies on my website.
By the way, if you’re looking for an excellent book on mapping, writing, and creativity, then I highly suggest The Writers’ Map, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones!
I’m prepping for a week at a school next week and will be rolling out one of my favourite workshops: The Doorway to Adventure! I’ll be doing this one for Grade 4s, but it’s easily adjusted to fit any age (I’ve done it for grades K-9).
For a typical school visit, I deliver a hybrid “presentation-workshop,” which combines my author introduction and writing approach with a hands-on activity for the students. In “The Doorway to Adventure,” I showcase the doors I’ve “collected” from around the world (some of my favourites picture here) and explain how they’ve inspired my books (especially The Secret of Zoone)! Next, I lead students in an interactive brainstorming session, helping them design their own doors as they consider storytelling questions. Students then use this brainstorming as a scene or story starter.
More information about my author presentation, craft workshops, and residencies on my website.
I recently wrapped up a writer-in-residency with a group of gifted learners through the Vancouver School Board and Artstarts. Over the course of several weeks, myself and fourteen students came together in a central location to talk writing and reading—and to create.
My teaching partner and I led students (and their characters!) in an epic journey, exploring various facets of storytelling. I had students take each week as a scene, doing my best to slow them down and take each part of their plot as an important “moment.” I wanted them to concentrate on idea-building and the process of story development, as opposed to simply the product.
As part of this approach, I had them work on many hands-on activities over the course of the program. There was plenty of visual brainstorming, but also some prop-building. Students crafted magical creature eggs, created potions from kits I prepared for them (you should have seen our house that day!), and wrote riddles in invisible ink.
I was in a gifted learning programming myself as a kid, so am always extremely grateful to work with classes like these, where we can pursue our passions and explore our imaginations. It’s hard to capture the magic of these situations, but I’ve done my best with a few photographs that I could snap along the way . . .
Today, I finished my first morning as writer-in-residence with the Vancouver School Board’s program for gifted learners. We’re going to be crafting scenes with the theme of “Magic and Monsters,” sending characters off on quests. Along the way, we’ll be designing secret doorways, building potion kits, writing in invisible ink, and mapping our way across imagined landscapes.
I’ve taught this program with VSB twice before, but this is the first time in person, which means I’m getting more hands-on editing, brainstorming, and other writing-related activities. A big thank you to my teaching partner, Ahmed Rahim, for making this amazing program happen. Also, thank you to Artstarts for their “artists in schools” program—we wouldn’t be able to roll out programs like this without their support.
The first part of today’s workshop focused on a general introduction to our philosophy and plan. I brought in my collection of handmade artifacts, hoping to inspire the students and get them to embrace the idea that writing is more than the act of sitting at a screen, but that it can involve doodling, mapping, and building.
I also brought in a stack of fantasy books. Yes, there was my own Spell Sweeper, but I also brought in a selection of other books from authors of diverse backgrounds and experiences to help them consider a broader approach in their own writing. The books included:
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
Eva Evergreen: Semi-Magical Witch by Julie Abe
The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat
Lia Park and the Missing Jewel by Jenna Yoon
Rise of the Dragon Moon by Gabrielle K. Byrne
The Twelve by Cindy Lin
The Serpent’s Secret by Sayantani Dasgupta
Girl Giant and the Monkey King by Van Hoang
Frances and the Monster by Refe Tuma
The Barren Grounds by David A. Robertson
The Dragon Egg Princess by Ellen Oh
The Last Shadow Warrior by Sam Subity
Wing and Claw: Forest of Wonders by Linda Sue Park
Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George
Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama
The Third Eye by Mahtab Narsimhan
The Fabulous Zed Watson by Kevin Sylvester and Basil Sylvester
Of course, I could have brought in many more books from my personal library, but you have to start somewhere!
The second part of the day was about rolling up our sleeves and writing our first scene, which was about a character discovering a secret of special doorway. The first order of business was to design the doorways and generate some story building elements. I love how these students embraced this process, as you can see by some of their work below!
Hard to believe the new school year is already here!
I had a very busy—and fun—2021-2022 season as an author, visiting schools, libraries, and learning institutes in Canada, USA, and Korea. Many were done virtually, but I also was thankful to see a return to in-person workshops (especially in Korea!). Many of my workshops were built off the release of my latest middle-grade book, Spell Sweeper—which meant a focus on magic potions, mysterious monsters, enchanted pets, and spell-binding shopping trips!
If I had an official resume, it would read like this for 2021-2022 . . .
World Read Aloud Day (virtual readings for schools across the US and Canada)
Canadian Children’s Book Week Tour (virtual workshops for schools in Alberta and Ontario)
Several in-person workshops for libraries and learning institutes in Korea
Several virtual author presentations for schools and libraries in Canada, in which I rolled out my trademark interactive brainstorming sessions
Writer/Artist-in-residencies for:
Vancouver School Board gifted learning program
Star of the Sea School, Grade 5
Kamloops School of the Arts (grades 8-12)
Hume Home Learning school (K-8)
I delivered activities for The Imagine in the Park festival in Hamilton, Ontario, and I even led events for adults, delivering presentations for CANSCAIP, The Writers’ Union of Canada, and WriteOnCon.
What magic will this school year hold? I’m prepping for my scheduled creative writing classes, writer-in-residencies, and school visits now, but you can still book me for an in-person or virtual author visit! Just visit my website.
At the end of June, I finished up a year-long project at an arts-based high school in Kamloops (about four hours outside of my home city of Vancouver). Over the many months, I delivered a series of world-building activities, all via Zoom, first because of the pandemic and then because the roads were cut off after our extreme flooding (and then because of covid again).
I do a lot of teaching and speaking over digital technologies, but it’s always a bit more challenging when art is involved because I simply don’t get a chance to lean over shoulders and see what everyone’s working on in the moment. Sure, people can send me photos and files, but it’s never quite the same, mostly because I find it harder to connect with the students.
Luckily, I was finally able to make the trip to Kamloops in the last week of June to deliver a keynote speech to the entire school body and to view their amazing gallery of work. The biggest surprise? The students were so engaged, asking me so many questions, and showing some genuine interest—these were things that I just didn’t pick up on during our virtual sessions. So, there was a connection, and that made the experience extremely rewarding.
As for the specifics of the project, the students were divided into teams to create five different realms: Ice, Sky, Underground, Land, and Water. The worldbuilding was applied to every course in the curriculum—not only the obvious ones such as art and writing, but also science and math.
The result was really amazing. As I wandered the gallery of their Enchanted Earth, I found sculpture, myths, recipes, maps, constellations, language systems, field guide entries for creatures, dioramas . . . pretty much every corner of these worlds was imagined and explored.
I’m showing pictures of just a fraction of the amazing pieces.
I want to extend my thank you to all the students and staff at Kamloops School of the Arts (secondary pod), in particular my partner Melanie Gilmar, who spearheaded the entire initiative. A big thank you to ArtStarts, the funding body for the project.
Unlike Cara Moone in my latest middle-grade book, I never went to magic school as a kid—but I was in a classroom that was incredibly magical.
It started in Grade 3 when I was sent to the hall to sit at a lonely desk and fill out a piece of paper. I thought I was in trouble at first! There was a sheet of paper with rows of circles, and the instructions said to draw.
I can’t remember what I drew exactly, but it definitely wasn’t confined to within those circles. In the weeks ahead, there were a few other tests, and at least one interview with some old guy that came across as very scientific. In my imagination, he hooked me up to electrodes and tested my brain patterns (but I actually think he just asked me complicated questions).
Grade 4 . . . everything changed. I was put into a “creative learning” class with Mrs. Clough. We had a giant room with a small number of students. Some of the students came and went, but as for me, I was in that same classroom with the same teacher for three years.
During those three years, my creativity was nurtured and enflamed. I was given permission to be me. (I grew up on a farm in a small rural town and let’s just say that painting pictures or writing stories did not have many practical applications).
Being in Mrs. Clough classroom was a foundational experience in my life. That room was my haven, a place where I could write, draw, build and explore. Many stories and ideas blossomed within those walls. I became a critical thinker, a dreamer, an enactor.
Mrs. Clough’s classroom helped make me who I am today, both as a writer and arts educator.
How can you ever repay those teachers in your life? It’s impossible, but I’m doing my best today by sending Mrs. Clough signed copies of my books.
Incidentally, that classroom still exists. Eventually our school was turned into a town center and our classroom was converted to become part of the public library . . . so, yep . . . my books are sitting on shelves in the place where I learned how to embrace my creativity.
No . . . that’s NOT the tagline for my next middle-grade book. It’s the tagline for YOURS.
Let me explain!
I am always on the hunt for new ideas to provoke, inspire, and entertain my teen-aged creative writing students. Many of them tumble down the rabbit hole of a long, epic project and I feel a big part of my job is to simply keep them motivated along the way with short and sweet writing projects.
That is where the The Best Fantasy Book Ever project comes is . . .
The pure unabashed joy of imagining
So many of us writers love imagining the package of a book. We love visualizing it on the shelf of the library or the bookshop, love picturing a reader curled up with our book in their hands. This is the type of enthusiasm I wanted to try and capture in this project. I also wanted my students to really unleash their imagination without having to worrying about actually having to . . . deliver.
The title comes first
I’d be curious to know how many authors start with a title—that is to say, they have a title before they have a first draft of the manuscript, or even a first chapter. Personally, I’m all over the map. I have baptized books very early on in the process with a title, while others it took many drafts of the manuscript before I could settle on a name. (As a side note, I’ve never had a publisher change a book title on me, though I have known many authors who have had this happen.)
There are three wheels, each producing its own word. String those words together, plonk a “the” at the beginning and—voilà! You have the title of the Best Fantasy Book Ever.
Here’s the hook
Next, I ask my students to write the back-cover copy for the book. Of course, this serves as an opportunity for me to explain the purpose of this text (NOT to summarize the book, but to sell it) and give some tips on how to write this sort of copy.
The results have been a lot of fun so far—and fantastic. I tried to use words that offer built-in story elements, words such as “last” or “apprentice” or “treason.” I also have a lot of words to suggest fantastical settings, such as “cloud” or “palace.”
I have ended up swapping out a few words here and there since I first built the wheels—I suppose, I could just expand them, too, adding more words, which I might do in the future. So far, though, no two students in any one class have generated the exact same title.
One thing that I find interesting is that very few of my students have felt the need to re-spin the wheels. They could easily do this, and I wouldn’t even know, since all of my classes that I have delivered this project for have been virtually delivered. At the end of the process I always ask how many times they have spun the wheels and I’ve only had a couple of students admit to spinning twice.
Bonus material!
There are a lot of possible extensions to this project. Some of my students wrote fake testimonials or reviews to grace their back covers. Others have written biographies of the authors they imagined wrote the books. Some have even written the opening scenes. Others have produced cover designs.
The freedom to create
I’ve now delivered this project to several different groups of teen-aged students, and I’ve had some time to reflect upon the results.
Many of my students get really caught up in creating something perfect. They are so attached to an idea that they want to write that they freeze halfway through a first chapter, petrified by their own dissatisfaction. Others peter out of steam later on in a manuscript because they get stuck on the ongoing nuances of the plot (I call this “Plot Paralysis”).
The Best Fantasy Book Ever project is aimed at helping remove that layer of self-conscious second-guessing. This is a fake book. They don’t have to deliver on it. They have no attachment to it. They just gush out their ideas, then move on.
However . . . there is some magic going on during this process. Because they are not thinking of the big picture, the big possibility, they simply do—and in doing, they are generating fresh ideas, interesting characters, premises, settings, and plot circumstances. Sure they might not write this book . . . but they’ve just bottled a bit of fuel for other projects.
Of course . . . I am waiting for one of my students to tell me they are going to write a book based on the hook they created for the Best Fantasy Book Ever project, because having read some of their back-cover copy . . . well, let’s just say there are some pretty amazing ideas out there!
By the way . . . for my upcoming book, Spell Sweeper, the title came early. I had been contemplating the ideas of magical brooms for a long time, but I wanted to do something with brooms that did NOT involve flying. I finally just asked myself this question: “What if brooms in the magical world were still for sweeping?” From there, the title seemed obvious and natural, though I had a few variations: The Secret Society of Spell Sweepers,Caradine Moone and the Secret Society of Spell Sweepers, and (my favorite): Cara Moone Definitely Does Not Want to Be A Spell Sweeper. Pretty quickly, though, I decided that the simpler Spell Sweeper was the best fit.
You can pre-order Spell Sweeper here. As you can see by the cover image, the tagline is NOT the Best Fantasy Book Ever—it’s Magic is Messy.
Between the Cracks of Here and There 