The Volume One Project with Mahtab Narsimhan
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Sun Feb 5 – 10 AM - Noon
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The Volume One Project is a creative writing workshop series from Small Print Toronto for the 8-to-12 set. Every session is tailored to showcase a new middle-grade novel and gives aspiring writers a chance to craft their own stories with such leading professional creators as award-winning author Mahtab Narsimhan.
What’s more important than a strong beginning? Mahtab will lead young scribes through an exercise in creating an evocative opening paragraph to a story. And she will award the author of the most alluring piece with an authentic tifflin container.
Mahtab’s acclaimed new novel, The Tifflin (Dancing Cat) tells the story of Kunal, a young man whose fate was shaped before he was born, when the tifflin his unwed mother used to send a note to her partner proved to be the one in six million containers that get delivered to the wrong address.
What’s the buzz about The Tifflin?
Melding the fantastically factual with fiction, Narsimhan sheds light on a relatively unknown part of Mumbai life while simultaneously creating a compelling quest that reads like a classic folk tale. Forgive the groan-inducing wordplay, but a novel this original is one in six million.
Shannon Ozirny, Quill & Quire
Children's Story Jam with Dennis Lee
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Children’s Story Jam with Dennis Lee
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Renowned poet and writer Dennis Lee kicks off “Children’s Story Jam”, a new workshop series hosted by noted novelist Vikki VanSickle, in which children’s authors get feedback on yet-to-be-published work from their most discerning critics: young readers.
Lee will work with poetry connoisseurs between 4-6 years old on pieces from his forthcoming collection Melvis & Elvis (HarperCollins Canada).
Each Children’s Story Jam session is tailored towards the formal issues that are uppermost on the minds of individual creators. There is also a free jam section, during which young people can bring and share their own writing, or create something on the spot, based on prompts like the theme of the day.
To encourage a spirit of anything goes during the Jam sessions, VanSickle and Chris Reed, Small Print Toronto’s Artistic Director, have come up with a few ground rules:
Authors aren’t giving a public performance. Readers come to participate in a closed workshop process, rather than to get a ‘sneak peak’ of a new work. They respect an author’s request to only work with a specific age group. And adults ride free as long as they behave themselves.
While it may be new to Toronto, Children’s Story Jam is part of a long tradition. After all, countless classic works of children’s literature stem from ‘jam sessions’ between an inventive author and a group of young listeners.
DENNIS LEE is a celebrated writer, poet, teacher, and thinker. He is widely known for his children’s writings, including Alligator Pie. Lee was a co-founder of the House of Anansi Press, and served as literary consultant for both Macmillan and McClelland & Stewart. His collection Civil Elegies and Other Poems won the Governor General’s Award for poetry. Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993, and served as Toronto’s first Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2004.
VIKKI VANSICKLE is a writer, playwright,and workshop facilitator. Her middle-grade novels include Words That Start With B and Love is A Four Letter Word.
CHRIS WILKIE is a writer, artist, photographer and graphic designer. She coined the moniker and designed the logo for Children’s Story Jam.
Advance tickets to our fourth annual Totsapalooza: Mouse City Calling on Sunday February 26, between 2-4pm, at Revival will be available shortly.
