KID LIT: MAKING BOOKS TO INSPIRE NEW READERS Hardcover books available; click on images below.
Ages 16-29
Fall 2021, Online
In this distance learning workshop, student fellows will write and illustrate original children’s books, taking inspiration from their own memories of learning to love reading. How can storytelling excite beginning readers? What kinds of worlds, characters, images, and words will stir their imaginations, their curiosity? What will feel relevant to them and also new? What will turn young children into lifelong bibliophiles? Fellows will need to be eager readers themselves, as well as eager writers, and willing, if not yet skilled, illustrators, ready to create images to enhance texts. Fellows will review successful children’s books, learning what kinds of books are suitable for which ages and levels of reading. They’ll consider concept, characterization, conflict, plot, and language; and how images can complement and complicate literary storytelling. And they’ll explore the possibilities of “drawing” and “painting” on an iPad, creating original illustrations in their own distinct styles. Each fellow will finish the workshop with a hard copy of their children’s book. Their work will also be shared through a virtual exhibition and on the program website. Limited to 8 student fellows.
Jalynn Harris is a poet, educator, press founder, and editor from Woodlawn, the greatest suburb in Baltimore. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of Baltimore. Her first chapbook, Exit Thru the Afro, is a future museum of Black queer artifacts.
William Wagner is a recent Johns Hopkins University graduate in applied mathematics, environmental studies, and visual art.
Katherine Paul is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Film and Media Studies Program. With a background in fine arts and digital media, she aspires to further pursue her creativities, and broaden and deepen her established expertise.
