Workshops

Mindy offers both student and teacher workshops to libraries, community groups, schools, or facilities for at-risk youth. Her favorite ages are 7th-9th grades, and the workshops work best with grades 6th through high school.

• One-Day Student Workshops: These programs are offered to student groups of not more than 45 students, include three, two, or one small group session of 45-60 minutes.

In these programs, student participate with hands-on-writing exercises, sharing, and the sessions often include integration of contemporary children’s and young adult literature.

One Day Student Workshops

Writing from Life Poetry-How do we draw on life experience to write powerful poems which impact ourselves and others? This workshop draws on Mindy’s experience writing with youth in juvenile detention. It works best with small groups and is best suited for at-risk youth for grades 7th and above.

Writing From Life: Flash Fiction–Flash fiction. It’s short. It’s fast, and it’s fun. In this workshop, Mindy will lead us through a series of exercises which “mine our memories” for ideas. Then, we’ll take those rich ideas and turn them into pieces of flash fiction.  Recommended for grades 8th through high school and/or adult workshops.

Collage Poetry-Explore the world of poetry through this fun, hands-on poetry workshop.  We’ll look at some artistic collages and read poetry written by young people found in poetry books such as Paint Me Like I Am and Tell the World. Then, we’ll write our own poems inspired by quick and easy collages that we create. This workshop works best with small groups in libraries or after school/community based clubs.  It would also work well in creative residency week-long settings.

Publishing for Young Writers–You’ve written a story and polished it until each sentence sparkles. Now you’re hoping to publish your work. But where do you begin? This workshop will show the young writer how to prepare a manuscript to submit for publication along with learning how to write a query letter and story synopsis. Young writers will learn about contests and publication resources designed just for youth and discover what resources are available on the web for young writers. This workshop is great for parents, educators and youth to attend together.

Writing a Supernatural Story: Ghosts, vampires, surreal stories that scare—come explore the world of the supernatural short story. In this workshop, we’ll look at authors such as Avi’s Strange Happenings, and Paul Fleischman’s Graven Images as we identify elements authors use in creating the world of the supernatural. We’ll try our hand at some writing exercises designed to help you find the ghost lurking in the corners of your stories!

Summer Adventures: Do you have an exciting summer adventure to share? Maybe you solved a mystery at camp, rode the waves of a hurricane, or wiped out on a jet ski. This session is based on Mindy’s short story, “Hurricanes” published in Summer Shorts: A Short Story Anthology. Writers will find ideas for how to write their own summer adventure stories based on magic seashells. This is a great “Back-To-School” or “Getting Ready for Summer Vacation” workshop.

Voice and Originality: Keys to Getting Your Writing Noticed-What is “voice?” What is originality? How can you make your writing stand out in a contest or competition? We’ll look at writing by award winning children’s authors as we explore how to move beyond the ordinary and find voice and innovative structure to story.

Revision: Seeing Our Stories Again and Again-Revision. The word no one likes to hear. But without revision, we do not have strong stories. This workshop looks at revision as a three part process. Students will explore revisions in a story’s structure, dig deeper into character, and fine tuning words and sentences.

Artist Characters-Students will look at some of the tools writers use to create a character. In particular, we will focus on the artist character. How do writers bring their characters to life? Why do we care about a character? What makes a character believable? As a part of this workshop, students will write and create their own character.

Teacher-In-Service Workshops

A ninety-minute presentation on the craft of writing for children, children’s and/or young adult literature. See below for a list of teacher-in-services available. Clock hours can be available through SPU if enough notice and time is given to Mindy. (At least two months).

Writing From Life Experience–This workshop draws on Mindy’s experience facilitating a poetry and writing workshop with youth in juvenile detention. Educators will learn how to ask students to draw on life experience and try their hands at a few poems themselves. Great workshop for educators or counselors working with at-risk populations.

Teaching the Young Adult Short Story: This workshop looks at integrating current young adult short stories from collections such as Necessary Noise, On The Fringe, and The Color Of Absence into your curriculum. The workshop focuses on the teaching of writing by using the young adult short story.

Integrating the Picture Book Into the Secondary Classroom: This workshop looks at how the picture book can be used in the secondary classroom. The workshop focuses on using non-fiction picture books and biography picture books as a means to supplement a current unit. The workshop also examines how the picture book can be used to teach good writing skills such as structure and word choice to students, and touches on the partnership between art and writing.

Integrating Young Adult and Children’s Literature into the Secondary Classroom: This workshop looks at the integration of children’s literature into the secondary classroom as a means to supplement the classics, help struggling readers, and most importantly, as a means of teaching writing to students.

Children’s Literature: How Do You Find Out What’s Good and What You’d Never Teach? This workshop examines the criteria reviewers use for determining good books. We’ll look at books which empower our female learners, books which appeal to our boy learners, books which appeal to reluctant learners, books which appeal to students at-risk, and books which appeal to the highly capable. Teachers will be given a resource of how to find good books for their classroom.