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Summer Youth: World-Building 101 (Ages 10-14)

Learn to create realistic settings as well as worlds that, though imaginary, affect the book's characters and readers.

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Summer Youth: World-Building 101 (Ages 10-14)

Summer Youth: World-Building 101 (Ages 10-14)

Learn to create realistic settings as well as worlds that, though imaginary, affect the book's characters and readers.

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Registrations Closed

About

Writers create worlds. It might be a small town. A bustling city. A raft, as in Huck Finn. Or a world that doesn’t exist, one born out of the writer’s imagination. Harry Potter lives in a world in which people fly on enchanted broomsticks.  Gollum and Bilbo reside in Middle-earth. In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, mattresses are dull-witted, animate objects. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, it rains rose petals.

What kind of worlds would you create? What effect will the places you create have on your characters and the plot? Learn to create realistic settings as well as worlds that, though imaginary, affect the book’s characters and readers. You'll end the week with a few polished pieces of writing that showcase the world(s) you built.

Details

  • Ages 10-14.
  • Bring water and a snack.
  • Registration closes Monday, July 21.
Instructor
Bob Balmer

Bob taught for 25 years, designing and facilitating talented and gifted programs for grades 3-8, as well as teaching middle- and high-school English classes. He was an Oregon Education Teacher of the Year. Students nominated him for Who's Who Among America Teachers, a Nobel Teacher Award, the K103 radio teacher of the week. A parent nominated him for mainstreaming teacher of the year. He has taught in Upward Bound, and the Duke University Summer Tip Program, a three-week writing intensive summer school course. He has facilitated writing workshops in California, Washington and Oregon, and his writing has appeared in the Smithsonian, Golf Illustrated, ZYZZYVA, the Seattle Times, the Oregonian, Oregon Coast Magazine, and other print publications. It has aired on the Savvy Traveler, MarketPlace and Oregon Public Radio and Television.

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