Lori Weber's Blog, page 3

MASC Conference Ottawa April 27 - 29th, 2011

I have just returned from participating in the 20th annual MASC conference for students in grades 4 - 8 at St. Paul's University in Ottawa. What a wonderful experience.

Each morning, seven other authors or illustrators and I would sit up on the auditorium stage and look out on a sea of 200 smiling and, in some cases, ecstatic young faces. Pens already in hand, book pages flapping like birds' wings in front of their faces, they were pumped and ready to get down to the business of creating. Some came from as far away as Wolf Island, which meant they had already taken a ferry and a bus to be there, yet they still looked fresh and ready to go. I guess that's what it's like to still be 10 or 12!

The kids in my workshop learned about the importance of using all five senses to build detail into a story and bring it to life for the reader. They learned to remember to use all of the ingredients of prose: exposition, description, dialogue, thought and action. To practise, they were given a bare-bones Aesop fable as a prompt and then they wrote the story from the points of view of the two characters. Halfway through, in order to get into the second character and stretch and rekindle the creative juices, we walked around the class. Kids were invited to heehaw like a donkey, buzz like a cicada, or crawl like a turtle and some really got into character.

Their stories were marvelous. They read to each other and then, at the end, to the entire class. I was truly impressed by what they came up with in two hours. The stories and original fable were glued into a booklet and the kids then decorated and drew with equal vigour. As teacher, I can say that all six groups were my dream class!

At the end of the day, the 8 artists sat at tables scattered around the auditorium and the kids had the chance to seek autographs, either in our books (sold at a table outside the auditorium - what a good idea) or in their notebooks, or, in one case, on a banana peel! In those 45 minutes I truly felt like a rockstar. It is not every day that I get to look right into the faces of the kids who read my books, so this is always a treat. It is also super encouraging to know that so many young people do love books. They devour them. They sparkle when they are touching them. Who says that love of reading is dead? It was alive and kicking at MASC, that is for sure.

I have to send out some cudos to the two main organizers of the event, Diane Walker and Janet Sullivan. They are part of the team at MASC, an organization that provides the school and community with artistic experiences. In this day and age of budget cuts to the arts, and with arts constantly taking a pedagogical backseat to the sciences, MASC is a vital organization for the Ottawa area. You can learn more about them at www.masconline.ca

Finally, one of the best parts of the whole experience was meeting my talented and entertaining fellow presenters. As writers, we often create in isolation, so meeting other writers who share some of the same challenges is always a thrill, especially when they are as nice as the ones I had breakfast with each morning at the Best Western: Linda Granfield (my hallway mate and history buff), Roslyn Schwartz (creator of the charming Mole Sisters), Helene Boudreau (who taught me some Acadian French), and Stefan Czernecki (who let the kids breakdance). Others who didn't break fast with me but were equally inspirational: Brian Doyle, Adrianne Steele-Card and Tom Henighan.

That you to MASC for inviting me and a big thank you to all the wonderful kids who created such wonderful stories and then shared them with me. It was such a treat to meet you.

Fall Readings and Winter Snow

I don't know where you live (dear reader), but here where I live, in Montreal, we are having the most beautiful white Christmas. Snow has been falling almost daily through December and it is already knee deep in our yard, just the way I like it. The tall pine trees that dot my neighbourhood have blankets of white wrapped around them and the hockey rink in the park is full of skaters sporting the red white and blue of the Montreal Canadiens jersey. There is something about looking out at that scene that makes me feel so Canadian. I am writing this on Christmas morning, with a pink sunrise coming over lac St. Louis while the rest of my family sleeps.

I have ignored this blog for long enough and feel I owe it to all the wonderful young writers I met this fall to say a few words. I ran a series of creative writing workshops at three local libraries: Pointe-Claire, Beaconsfield and Dollard-des-Ormeaux. We looked at all the major components of fiction: plot/confict, character, setting, dialogue, symbolism (my favourite). In each library I met kids with so much passion for books and writing, it buoyed my creative spirit. There was so much talent and I was amazed at what kids could write on the spot. It's not easy to create a compelling character and give her 1) a tell-tale gesture 2) meaningful piece of clothing 3) an odd mannerism of speech 4) a favourite object all in one hour but these kid came up with some gems. It just encourages me as a writer to know that there is still a strong love of books and stories out there. It's not all video games!!!

I also visited Melinda Cochrane's grade 9 classes at Beaconsfield High School. They had read If You Live Like Me so I was thrilled to be able to show my slides of Newfoundland and talk about why I love that province. Ms. Cochrane, who is obviously much loved by her students, gave me a bag of Purity hard tack which sent me reeling back 20 years to the now burned down Dominion on Parade Street in St. John's. Being newcomers to the province back then, my husband and I had bought a bag thinking they might make nice crackers or teething biscuits for our then baby daughter. Ha! Those things could be mortared together to build a house if you could be sure no rain would ever fall.

The Beaconsfield students had wonderful questions for me and I sensed they had really engaged with Cheryl, the protagonist who is forced to move to Newfoundland against her will. When they asked why I chose Newfoundland, I was happy to tell them what I love most about it: the fact that material goods are not valued as much as friendship. At least that was once true and I hope it remains true even with the new prosperity oil is brining. Not that I am glorifying poverty. We all need some material comfort, that is for sure. But human relations have to come first. The kids' eyes really lit up when I told them not to fall for what the commercials tell them: that buying the latest gadgets will make them happy. Your connections to other people are what make you happy. I felt like they instinctively know this but aren't sure if they should believe it. It's not the strongest message their consumer culture is giving them.

Finally, I taught my new young adult ficiton course at John Abbott College where I work. The students read 5 novels and, for many of them, this was more reading than they had done in a life-time. My main goal as a teacher is to get them to see reading as pleasure. Some were sceptical at first, but I feel there were many converts by the end. Who could not be seduced by Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, MT Anderson's Feed, Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty and Virginia Ewer Wolff's True Believer? They all read a 5th book chosen from a list of ten stellar titles. I was excited and I can't wait to teach the course again.

I have lots of fun writing activities on the table for the new year and will blog about them later. For now, I am going to watch the snow fall. Happy 2011 everyone!

On The Rock Again

Hello

Anyone who knows me or who has read my last book, If You Live Like Me, knows that I am fond of Newfoundland. That is NO secret. I was lucky to travel there twice in one year, in March to take my daughter to her audition at M.U.N. and again in August to help her move there because she was accepted in the Music Program. In March I visited schools and gave interviews and readings, but this trip was all pleasure. Not that leaving my only child behind was pleasure, but I was happy to see her so happy.

I am sharing some pictures of the trip, just in case my book did not convince you that the province is extraordinarily beautiful. The whale in the water is an Orca, a very rare sighting. We saw it in Pouch Cove (pronounced Pooch).

Lori

Library Workshops and Sweat

Greetings Readers
I have been shamefully neglectful of my poor little blog, but that is because I have been busy getting back into a new semester and also giving lots of creative writing workshops around the West Island (part of Montreal). I have met many new young writers hoping to learn a thing or two about good writing. What can I say that I have not already said about writing: except maybe this - it involves lots of sweat. But that sweat can pay off. I may have some good news to report...

Writing in Nova Scotia

For two weeks in June, my writer friend Jane Barclay (Btw: recent winner of the Ruth Schwartz Children's Book Award) and I rented a lovely cottage in Hunt's Point, Nova Scotia, for the primary purpose of doing some serious work on our young adult novels. It was a road trip with a literary mission: to seclude ourselves from family, friends, and even technology and produce some good writing. In the last picture above you can see us waiting for the ferry in St. John, New Brunswick, on a...

Imagine a Story Conference

Last weekend I participated in a panel discussion on young adult literature as part of the Imagine a Story Conference. This was a first ever conference organized by Yesouicanscaip, the Quebec branch of Canscaip.

The entire day was a roaring success, especially since this was an inaugural event. The group really didn't know what to expect, since the anglophone community in Montreal is so much smaller than in Toronto - obviously - which is where the big annual Canscaip conference takes place...

QWF Writing for Teens Class Spring 2010

Greetings All

I have just finished team teaching (along with fellow writer Monique Polak) another Teen Talk: Writing Young Adult Fiction class for the Quebec Writers' Federation. Once again, we worked with such a talented group of people. I certainly hope to and expect to see their names in print in the future.

So many good questions came up during the course of the 8 weeks, questions that made me think hard and reflect on this difficult business of writing a good book. There is so much to...

A Week in Newfoundland

Well, I'm back - a little soggy from the constant drizzle and rain, but happy. I love being in St. John's, even in bad weather. The fog was so thick that we couldn't see Cabot Tower from our bedroom window, until the last day, Sunday. Then the mist lifted and we flew up Signal Hill to look out on the ocean and the city - but it was COLD!

I had an eventful week which began with an interview on the local CBC radio with Jeff Gilhooly (I just might have to use that last name some time), where I...

Rockbound Once Again

It's been ages since my last posting - I had a feeling I'd be bad at this blogging business. I do have a good excuse though: I have been teaching an intensive course for which I just finished the heavy marking load yesterday.

My course is called In a Material World and in it we examine the insidious world of consumerism and advertising. Our main reads (apart from many shorter texts) are Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and M.T. Anderson's Feed. They go so well together as dystopias about...

Future Writers

Look closely at these faces: among them may sit the writing stars of the future. These are shots of the final workshop day in my Creative Writing for Children course at John Abbott College. Students are giving one another feedback on the first chapters of their young adult novels. There was an abundance of talent in this year's class. I read picture books, first chapters of junior novels and young adult novels that literally blew me away and made me wish I could find a way to force these...