{"id":10237,"date":"2015-04-22T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T04:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=10237"},"modified":"2021-08-30T16:33:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T06:33:03","slug":"why-the-future-of-australian-creativity-is-in-safe-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/why-the-future-of-australian-creativity-is-in-safe-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the future of Australian creativity is in safe hands…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NYW<\/a>Last week was National Youth Week<\/a>, the largest celebration of young people in Australia. Thousands of young people aged 12-25 got involved in events across Australia, and one of those events was a free writing workshop I organised for young writers at Manly Library<\/a>. T<\/span>he NYW’s tagline never felt more real:<\/p>\n

It starts with us!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, each generation does indeed start with its youth, and I was truly inspired by the imagination and concentration of the young writers who attended this workshop.<\/p>\n

\"Oodles<\/a>

Oodles of early Shapter writings.<\/p><\/div>\n

I remember all too well what it was like as a young creative spirit, bursting with ideas and a love of words. (Was? I still am!) I have folders and workbooks full of poetry and short stories from when I was a teenage writer, who would have given to attend a FREE writing workshop tutored by professional writers!<\/p>\n

So it brought me immense pleasure to be able to share some of my writing experience with these kids. Each attendee got a one-on-one mentoring session with either myself for fiction, or my fellow tutors: the amazing Kris Prescott<\/a> for journalism & Chris Lake for autobiography. Thanks for helping, guys!<\/p>\n

Still, these young writers were something else \u2013 they wrote non-stop for five hours!<\/p>\n

Five \u2013 hours.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Shapter<\/a>

Impressive concentration during National Youth Week!<\/p><\/div>\n

Seriously, if this workshop is anything to go by, the future of Australian creativity is in safe hands!<\/p>\n

Some came to the workshop with story ideas they wanted to develop; others came with only their enthusiasm and a determination to write a complete… something. By the end of the day, we had an amazing collection of autobiographical stories, fictional crime, fantasy, and coming-of-age stories, an historical article, even a biography of the Mayor of Manly!<\/p>\n

Wow.<\/p>\n

\"Shapter<\/a>Of course sugar and pizza had something to do with it. Thanks to Coles Balgowlah we had fizzy drinks and chips to sustain our young minds, and thanks to Pizza Hut Balgowlah<\/a> we had hot pizza at lunchtime. This was actually very important because without these donations, the kids might have sought out refreshments in Manly Corso, which would have cut down on their workshop time. So thank you Coles & Pizza Hut. Also, yum!<\/p>\n

Everything in moderation and treats can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>

Image by Susannah Grussell.<\/p><\/div>\n

The kids’ stories and articles will now be collated into a souvenir magazine of the day, which they can use as part of their creative portfolio \u2013 after all, there’s nothing more rewarding for a writer than seeing their words in print.<\/p>\n

So thank you Manly Library<\/a> for hosting our event, to ACE Design & Print<\/a> for printing our magazine, to\u00a0Theresa Holliday for asking Coles and Pizza Hut<\/a> for their yummy treats, to\u00a0Dawn Whitten <\/span><\/a> for being our resident artist on the day, to Leah Boonthanom<\/a> for her magazine design, to Kris Prescott<\/a> & Chris Lake for tutoring, and to Ruth Purdie-Smith and\u00a0Susannah Grussell from the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group<\/a> for assisting on the day. It was so much fun, I could easily do it again…!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was National Youth Week, the largest celebration of young people in Australia. Thousands of young people aged 12-25 got involved in events across Australia, and one of those events was a free writing workshop I organised for young writers at Manly Library. The NYW’s tagline never felt more\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6,7],"tags":[1246,882,1243,1248,361,370,1245,976,1241,443,455,1242,1244,1249,1250,1247],"class_list":["post-10237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookish-inspection","category-personal-news","category-writer-advice","tag-ace-design-print","tag-chris-lake","tag-coles-balgowlah","tag-dawn-whitten","tag-kristin-prescott","tag-leah-boonthanom","tag-manly-corso","tag-manly-library","tag-national-youth-week","tag-nbwg","tag-northern-beaches-writers-group","tag-nyw","tag-pizza-hut-balgowlah","tag-ruth-purdie-smith","tag-susannah-grussell","tag-theresa-holliday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/NYW-2015-SHAPTER.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10237"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14232,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions\/14232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}