Learn how to Minecraft a story at the Writers Centre

Are you home for the holidays? If you have restless small writers, enrol them in our school holiday program at Coledale Community Hall.

Minecraft a Story

On January 14 you can send your 8- to10-year-olds to Minecraft a Story with award-winning children’s author Sandy Fussell. This unique writing workshop uses elements of Minecraft game play: kids will fill their Minecraft inventory with the items needed for storytelling; use the crafting table to make their story more compelling with increased exciting action, extra creepy atmosphere and really scary monsters.

Learn writing with Helena Fox

Helena Fox, our Young Writers Program leader, hosts workshops for older kids. Helena won the Prime Minister’s Award for Young Adult Fiction for her novel, How It Feels To Float, in December, so if you have a young person who likes to write, don’t let them miss out on the opportunity of working with her!

For ages 10-13 the workshop, What a wonderful world!, will focus on creating vibrant settings: investigating how to create fantastical and compelling worlds for stories, thinking about everything from physical geography to possible magic systems, what the occupants of your story look like and how they behave.

For ages 14-18, Who Are You? explores character and voice. Characters are the cornerstones of any story, and stories shine brightest when those characters are distinct and three-dimensional. This workshop explores the different ways characters can look, think, move and interact with each other, as well as learn the things they want and what makes them tick.

Writing lessons for adults

Our adult programming resumes on 16th January. Ever wondered how audiobooks get made? You can join experienced audiobook narrator and producer Katherine Littrell on a journey from PDF to MP3.

Katherine works regularly with major American and Australian publishers, including HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon and Schuster, transforming novels into audiobooks. In this interactive workshop she will give you a behind-the-scenes tour of how audiobooks are created for the global marketplace. You’ll learn everything you might need to know, including casting, the author’s role in the production cycle, distribution options, and promotion.

On 17th January you can join South Coast Writers Centre’s Director Sarah Nicholson at the Wollongong Art Gallery for writing embodied in the senses. Writing from sound, writing from breath and writing from skin, participants will view and write in response to the gallery’s major exhibition ‘Every Body’.

Finally, we are thrilled to announce that, in partnership with Wollongong City Council’s Cultural Development Team, Brad Eastman, aka Beastman, will be painting a mural on the external wall of Coledale Community Hall in 2021.

As part of the design development, we invite locals to attend one of our free writing workshops: Writing Australian History on January 23 with Judi Morison and Poetics of Place on Sunday 24th with Mark Tredinnick.

All info and bookings: www.southcoastwriters.org.au