Summer Cartooning Classes for Kids and Parents

Cartoon Art Museum Classes  

Wednesday, July 3, 2013, 11am-1pm – Parent/Child

Class: Superheroes and Supervillains

Wednesday, July 3, 2013, 2-4pm – Parent/Child

Class: Crazy Cut-out Animation

Wednesday, August 7, 2013, 11am-1pm –

Parent/Child Class: Magical Adventures

Wednesday, August 7, 2013, 2-4pm – Parent/Child

Class: Mini-Comic Making
 
Celebrate the summer with fun classes that will have adults and kids teaming up to create their own cartoons at the Cartoon Art Museum!  The cost of materials and Cartoon Art Museum admission is included in the tuition fee.

Tuition for these classes can be paid through Guestlist.  Space is limited, and advance reservations are recommended:  http://guestlistapp.com/events/133932
 
PARENT and CHILD CARTOONING WORKSHOPS

Wednesday July 3, 2013 – Parent/Child Class: Superheroes and Supervillains

Ages: Parents/Guardians and Children (7 to 12 years old) recommended
Time: 11am to 1pm
Cost: $10 per person (all children must be accompanied by an adult, ideally no more than two children per parent)

Reserve your space: http://guestli.st/155586
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! In this Adult/Kid combo class we will create our own Hero and Villain characters while learning some of the basics of cartooning.

Wednesday July 3rd, 2013 – Parent/Child Class: Crazy Cut-out animation

Ages: Parents/Guardians and Children (7 to 12 years old) recommended
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Cost: $10 per person (all children must be accompanied by an adult, ideally no more than two children per parent)

Reserve your space: http://guestli.st/155595
Get hands-on experience with animation in this class for Parents and Kids featuring stop-animation with paper cut-outs. Participants will break into small groups and be able to create a few simple ‘crazy’ moments under the camera. The final results will be posted on the Cartoon Art Museum’s website the following week.

Wednesday August 7th, 2013 – Parent/Child Class: Magical Adventures

Ages: Parents/Guardians and Children (7 to 12 years old) recommended
Time: 11am – 1pm
Cost: $10 per person (all children must be accompanied by an adult, ideally no more than two children per parent)

Reserve your space: http://guestli.st/165864
Create your own world of wizards, monsters, elves and brave heroes! Adults and Kids team up to create their own fantasy characters in this fun interactive cartooning class.
 
Wednesday August 7th, 2013 – Parent/Child Class: Mini-Comic Making

Ages: Parents/Guardians and Children (7 to 12 years old) recommended
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Cost: $10 per person (all children must be accompanied by an adult, ideally no more than two children per parent)

Reserve your space: http://guestli.st/165855
This Parent/Child class teaches how to write and draw a simple comic book story and then to assemble it into a book you can take home with you.


All classes are taught by longtime CAM instructor Brian Kolm of Atomic Bear Press http://www.atomicbearpress.com

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Cartoon Art Museum • 655 Mission Street • San Francisco, CA 94105 • 415-CAR-TOON • www.cartoonart.org
Hours:  Tues. – Sun. 11:00 – 5:00, Closed Monday
General Admission: $7.00 • Student/Senior: $5.00 • Children 6-12: $3.00 • Members & Children under 6: FreeThe Cartoon Art Museum is a tax-exempt, non-profit, educational organization dedicated to the collection,
preservation, study and exhibition of original cartoon art in all forms.

 

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So You Want to Write a Children’s Book?

 

1. If you want to write a picture book, read 1,000 of them.  Read the ones published today.  Read, read, read.  Get to know your independent bookstore and children’s librarian for specific suggestions.
2. Join The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.   scbwi.org
3. Send away for every free publication available from SCBWI.  Read these materials carefully. 
4. Attend local writing for children workshops and conferences by SCBWI.  Take writing classes. 
5. Join a writer’s group or find a writing partner to encourage your discipline.  It is most helpful if you can find members who are writing for children, too. 
6. After you’ve written many drafts of your project, submit it for a professional critique at a conference.  If you are able to meet face-to-face with the professional, ask polite questions regarding your writing craft and your manuscript.
7. Read and listen to advice from other authors.  One example is my book, The ABCs of Writing for Children: 114 Children’s Authors and Illustrators Talk About the Art, the Business, The Craft & the Life of Writing Children’s Literature.
8. Look at your world through the eyes of a child.  How do they talk, think and feel?  If you work with children, are a parent or a grandparent, you have an advantage!  Volunteer at a local library, preschool or elementary school to read or play with children. 
9.  Remember that publishing changes rapidly.  Kids aren’t reading books that were published in 1960 or 1970.  Your book must be competitive with today’s market and be read with the sophistication of today’s child.
10.  Read all of your work out loud.  Read other published children’s books out loud.  You’ll need to incorporate the internal rhythm of literature into your writing style.

Confrontation

Confrontation – - a semiannual publication for fiction, nonfiction and poetry.  Although it has begun careers of Nobel and Pultizer Prize-winning authors, it also features work from college students and teenagers.

Confrontation is open to submissions from any writer.

How to send your work:

U.S.-based writers: Along with your manuscript of previously unpublished work, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) with standard letter-rate 1st-class postage so that we can reply to your submission. If you want us to return your manuscript along with our reply, be sure to include enough postage on your SASE to allow us to do so. If your work is a simultaneous submission, please let us know in your cover letter.

International writers: E-mail submissions (confrontationmag@gmail.com) are accepted only from writers living outside the U.S. Please include your postal mailing address with your submission.

If your work under simultaneous submission is accepted elsewhere, please inform us as soon as possible: confrontationmag@gmail.com.

We usually respond to submissions within three to four months; we are quite a small staff, so we appreciate in advance your patience if we stray beyond this window. Reading period for all submissions: August 16 – May 15. Unless specifically commissioned or solicited, all manuscripts received during the non-reading period will be returned unread.

For all submissions, please be sure not to put two spaces between sentences.

Mail your submissions to:

Confrontation Magazine
English Department
LIU Post
Brookville, NY 11548

Stories

We judge on quality of writing and thought or imagination, so we will accept genre fiction. However, it must have literary merit or it must transcend or challenge genre.

Send complete manuscript.

Length: Up to 7,200 words

Payment: $50-$125; more for commissioned work.

Poetry

Length of a poem should be kept to two pages.

Send up to six poems per submission.

Payment: $25-$75; more for commissioned work.

Nonfiction

We publish personal as well as cultural, political and other kinds of essays, and (self-contained) sections of memoirs.

Send complete manuscript.

Length: 1,500-5,000 words.

Payment: $50-$125; more for commissioned work.

For more information, visit confrontation.org

California Writers Club Mt. Diablo Branch Young Writers Contest 2013

The California Writers Club Mt. Diablo Branch’s Young Writers Contest winners are featured in today’s Contra Costa Times.  Check Good Neighbors in the Pleasant Hill/Martinez Record section.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/pleasant-hill/ci_23338141/good-neighbors-by-faith-barnidge-helping-low-income

 

 

Where is the beauty in your world?

Thanks for sharing this amazing film.  Making music from trash found in a landfill!  There is beauty in the world . . . we just need to know where to look. 

Comment from Joanne

Writing Prompt Inspired by Joanne’s Comment:

Where do you find beauty in your world?  Write a poem, personal narrative or story about this topic.   Make it a sensory experience.

Inspiring Creativity

The Landfillharmonic Orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=UJrSUHK9Luw

 

Writing Prompts:

1.  Listen to classical music.  What does it inspire you to write or draw?  Let the sound lead your imagination away!

2.  Choose recycling material.  What art can you create?

3.  Write a poem, song or short story based on something re-created from another object. 

4.  See if music playing while you make your art helps your originality.  Some authors choose one piece of music or one composer to listen to for each project.  Then when they hear that particular song, their brain immediately begins work in that world.  Choose music for the art you are working on now.   

On Writing Crappy and Writing Great (or at Least Better)

I guess reporters don’t know which column will be published when, or else the California Writers Club Young Writers Contest article and photo just didn’t make it into my edition of the Contra Costa Times on May 23.  Next time I’ll only post it here when I see it in the paper myself. 

***

As I’ve been working on a project, I’ve found myself being concerned with the marketing aspect and how the publicist would  react to the story.  After the day’s work, I closed my computer and purposely didn’t re-read my words. 

The next morning, I printed out my chapter and took a clipboard to revise and work on another scene.  Reading what I had written, my jaw dropped.  Who was this stilted writer who had composed these awkward sentences?  Do I know this person?  Where did she come from? If she was in my writing class, I’d take her aside and tell her to forget the final phases of book production, and free herself by going back to the basics.  Think about character!  Relax.  Wonder about the story, don’t let the final outcome block the writing process.

I set aside my previous day’s disaster, and started over.  This time, I let my mind wander over my characters and their world.  “No worries,”  I told myself.  “Have fun with these people.  Get to know them.  You don’t have to write the very next chapter.  Just write a scene where they talk to each other. What’s the worst problem they can get into together?  What will they do?”

Writing Prompts:

1.  What is a dramatic or interesting conflict you can have your character get into?  Can it somehow be based on her greatest fear?

2.  What emotion does your scene evoke?  What do you want your reader to feel?

3.  What is the motivation for why the characters in your scene act the way they do?

4.  Write about your characters BEFORE this scene.  What is their back story?

5.  Within your writing, can you locate where you are showing and where you are telling?  Highlight the telling.  If you have too much highlighting, where can you show in a scene rather than tell?  Or where can you cut out the telling all together?  If it doesn’t move your story forward, cut it out.

California Writers Club Mt. Diablo Branch Young Writers Contest

Heard word from the reporter that the photo and column about our Young Writers Contest winners will be in the Good Neighbor column during the week of May 30.  Be on the lookout!

Recently a friend’s husband drove her to a meeting and returned home after fifteen minutes.  Switching on music,  he headed to the bedroom and stopped abruptly.  Their back window had been smashed; dresser drawers were strewn open, their contents spilling out.  Most of his wife’s jewelry was missing, except for a few pieces the burglars had dropped on the floor in their hasty retreat.

“I think he got home in the middle of it,” she said.  She was relieved they left her most valued sentimental necklace behind. 

Then there was the time my son was four and the floor beneath our feet began rolling.    “Earthquake!  Run!”  I yelled as I scooped up our terrier.  We flew past the swinging  light fixture and didn’t stop until we reached the middle of the cul-de-sac. 

We waited until birds chirped and squirrels chattered once again. After returning to discover overturned file cabinets, right where my son had been playing, I explained what could occur during an earthquake.  Later we discovered the extent of the Loma Prieta once we got back our electricity.  “Gee,” said Tofer, considering our house could have been demolished.  “I should have grabbed Herbie.”  (His favorite stuffed animal, which wasn’t an animal at all, but a car.)

During the disastrous Oakland fire of 1991, my friend’s sister and her family were evacuated.  She ran past her dresser, noticing a coffee mug, her jewelry box, and a photo album.  They didn’t stop running until they got to the base of their hill. That’s when she discovered she held the coffee mug in her hand. 

Writing Prompts:

1.   What was the first object that held important emotional meaning for you? Why?  How did you value it? Describe the item and show how you placed it in esteem. 

2.  Did your family have any treasured family heirlooms?  Write an essay about one’s significance.

3.  You have only a minute to grab one item to save from your home. What do you take and why? Describe it using your senses and emotions.

4.  In the writing project you are working on now, write about a meaningful object for your main character, a minor character, and even the antagonist.  Give background for each.  Why do they hold significant relevance?  Can any of them be a larger symbol?

Students! Learn to Write Book Reviews! Creative Nonfiction! Poetry! And more . . .

Storyteller Junior Editors

Read + Review Upcoming Books!This program is ideal for opinionated readers who love to discuss books and write reviews for peer critique groups.Fee: $115  includes materials, light snack, and copies of our annual publication. Incoming Grades 2-5:  5-6:30 pm Middle/High School:  7-8:30  June 20, July 11, July 25, August 1

Wordplay Creative Writing Camp

This program is perfect for writers interested in practicing new poetic techniques, crafting stories, exploring creative nonfiction, and sharing ideas in a lively, informal setting.   Fee: $115  includes materials, light snack, and copies of our annual publication. Ages 7-10:  10-11:30Ages 11-up:  12:30-2:00  June 24 through 28

Contact  wordplayworkshop@hotmail.com

 Or find us on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/WordplayWorkshop

 https://www.facebook.com/TheStorytellerBookstore

 The Storyteller Bookstore is located in Lafayette, CA.