Aside from the book launching and book buying events I had last MIBF (Manila International Book Fair), I also facilitated a story writing workshop sponsored by my publisher, Lampara Books.
Lampara has been conducting the workshop since 2011. This is 4th writing workshop for its patrons and avid readers. I have been participating as its facilitator for three straight years now. In my first year, I only had a 40 minute talk on writing stories for kids. In the second year, I was given an hour and a half to do a mini-workshop. This year, I had two hours of input session and a workshop. As always, it was a pleasure to meet new friends, young and old.
I was even interviewed by young writers from Palanan Elementary School. Dave and Camille are six graders who attended the workshop. They are campus journalists for the school paper.
I opened the workshop with a brief introduction on the trends and themes prevalent in Philippine Children's Literature today; the National Children's Book Awards; why the NCBA should be taken seriously; the first Kids' Choice Award; and implications of all these to writers of children's stories. To immerse the participants in children's books, I had them read it. They reviewed the books following the 10 Values of Children's Literature by Ruth Clarkson. There was sharing of output in small group and big group discussions.
When Eugene Evasco came up the stage, he provided an array of different exercises for writing stories. Many of his exercises were pre-writing activities; language techniques; strategies for character and plot development.
It was an enriching afternoon! We had eighty participants and they filled the room with their interest and enthusiasm. Here's hoping we would have more writers to write for children.
