Dawn Meredith - Author

I have great pleasure in uploading for your reading excitement, the first finished story from the writing workshops for kids I ran in Orange last month! This wonderful story is written by Lucy. Here is the first paragraph, just to tease you ! Then click on the link to read the rest. Enjoy!  The Destroyer by Lucy J. “Hi Sarah!” yelled Ella to her best friend. “Hi Ella!” Sarah shouted back. Ella and Sarah were little fairies, and in their town there was a mean wizard whose name was Mary. She hated all fairies - especially Ella and Sarah - because they were good, and she liked evil. The fairies all lived in the Valley of Fairy Dust, and since Mary liked evil she lived on top of Mount Death. rest of story

Its a funny thing, rejection. It's like a crossroads. You arrive, you feel the slap around the face and you stand there, dazed for a moment, thinking. Here's where you have a choice - you can whine and feel sorry for yourself, get angry that your amazing talent wasn't recognised for its true worth and rage at the world for being unfair to you. OR you can learn, extend your skills, be brave, GROW. Here's an article that briefly describes the journey of singer Lady Gaga, who was signed by a record company and later dumped before she'd recorded a note. rejection feeds creativity Because she picked herself up and kept going, learning, changing, she later became famous for an even more eclectic style of music all her own.  GOTYE had a similar journey, so did the amazing Sir Richard Branson.  Researchers at John Hopkins University arranged a study where they tested this hypothesis - that being rejected can actually make you more creative. My last book went to six ...

Hey guys! I just got back from Orange NSW where I ran writing workshops for 40 children in years 4,5 & 6 from 9 different schools. What a fabulous bunch of kids! they ALL produced amazing work and had fun doing it. In session one we talked about how a book is created and the publishing process, how illustrators and authors work together, how long it takes for a book to be released. We workshopped on creating fun and random characters, how each character must have a dearest wish (motivation) and push through obstacles to make it come true. We talked about plot and character arcs. We speculated about 'evil dudes' and some of the ideas that came up were truly creepy!  Then in session two we worked on proofreading and editing, what makes a sentence a real sentence and how to create a 'hook' in the very first line of the story. We filled in more details on the character profile sheet and began writing the real thing.  I was so impressed with how well beha...