The Holiday Break Program September

We had a wonderful three days with award winning author Catherine Jinks and newly published Alex Eldridge when they visited Broken Hill during the first week of the September school holidays. Catherine and Alex came to encourage and inspire young writers in the second instalment of ‘The Holiday Break’ program, funded by the Office of Regional Youth and Create NSW, in partnership with WestWords.

Once again, we had two groups participating, the Young Writers group for ages 11-15 and the Dungeons and Dragons group for ages 14+. The workshops focused on world-building, map-making and story development. Participants created detailed characters for each world and learned skills about writing dialogue and pacing the story.

 The young writers explored story through games and by working together as a group before beginning individual storylines. Participants published their pieces, and these stories will become part of an anthology that will be shared at the conclusion of the program in April 2023.

Meanwhile, the older group have been working with Alex during Term 3, via Zoom, to learn the craft of writing stories for role playing Dungeons & Dragons. Hopefully we will have some more Dungeon Masters in the future!

The next Holiday Break workshops are scheduled over 3 days: January 30th, 31st and February 1st.

So, save the dates and be ready to come along with creative ideas to share, write and be published in the anthology!