Youth Territory Author Awards Writing Workshops

HAVE YOU GOT A STORY you're bursting to get on paper? The Young Territory Author Awards have a heap of great prizes for young writers – plus bragging rights!

Coming up with your own original story can be a big task, so how do you get started? Ask the experts. Two local authors will give their tricks of the trade at the City of Darwin Libraries to help get the creative juices flowing.

Teens aged 11-18 can pick the brains of award-winning author, Barry Jonsberg. Jonsberg has published 20 books since he started writing in 2004, and says there are three main writing points he teaches young people.

“Number one is finding stories,” he says.

“I try to help students understand stories are all around us. In my experience, kids want to get involved in something like Game of Thrones, which will take a couple of million words. They neglect the very ordinary stories that are all around us, which often make the best stories.”

“The second part is writing characters. I always like the idea of letting the characters be them-selves, rather than forcing them to do something.”

The final point of advice is the most important, according to Jonsberg.

“But it’s the part they don’t like very much,” he laughs.

“It’s the notion that once you’ve finished, you have to edit and re-write and re-write to make it the very best it can be.”

Jonsberg illustrates these points with different exercises, which will hopefully inspire the next genera-tion of young writers.

For the littler ones, author and illustrator Sandra Kendell will share her knowledge for youngsters aged 7-10 on how to craft and illustrate their best book.

Sandra Kendell SAT 13 JUL | 9-10.30AM | DARWIN LIBRARY | FREE | darwin.nt.gov.au/libraries

Barry Jonsberg SAT 6 JUL | 11AM-12.30PM CASUARINA LIBRARY | FREE | darwin.nt.gov.au/libraries