Do you have a budding young writer at home?

Mark your calendar for 12 October 2024 when Queensland Writers Centre presents Brisbane Children’s Writers Festival (#BCWF2024). It’s a one-day festival of writing, illustrating, zines, poetry, interactive storytelling, screenwriting, competitions and more for writers aged 10-16. Our 2024 theme is Play - Paper, Scissors, Rock.

Young creatives will come together for a day of hands-on activities, peer support and feedback from industry professionals.

CHECKING IN ON THE DAY

We know parking can be difficult. To make things easier we offer a drop off/pick up service from the bus stop outside the State Library. Drop off from 8:30am and pickup after 3:45pm.

Program

8:30am - Check-in

9:00am - Festival welcome

Including Acknowledgement of Country.

9:30am-3:15pm - Workshops

Join in exciting workshops with other writers your age! Everyone will get the chance to immerse in each of our featured workshops, rotating across the day of the Festival.

BUILDING STORIES WITH LILI WILKINSON

In this engaging workshop, Lili leads participants through the writing process, from coming up with an initial idea, to developing a character, to building a sturdy plot structure. Learn to build your story with the author of Deep is the Fen and A Hunger of Thorns.

X MARKS THE SPOT WITH JESS MCGEACHIN

Have you wanted to find an old, dusty map that leads to a hidden world? Or directions to a secret horde of buried treasure? In this workshop participants will learn about different types of maps from the real (and not so real) world, learn how maps can be a useful tool in storytelling and design their very own secret fantasy map.

ZINE SPOT

Discover how to create, write and illustrate your own zine. One of the best things about zines is that you can create while focussing on recycling, reusing and reducing waste.

SCRIPTWRITING

Take a look at scriptwriting and find out how to write for the screen. Learn how to format and structure a script.

CHILL SPOT

Hang out and make stickers, or take the writing challenge with a game of Frankenstories. This is the place to make, create and write your own thing.

poetry

Poetry takes on many forms and you can explore them all in this high energy workshop.

3:15pm - 3:45pm - Awards

Celebrate your writing work: includes presentation of Festival awards for our on-the-day competitions and more.

3:45pm - 4:00pm - Pickup

#BCWF2024 is free for Queensland Writers Centre youth members. Get your membership today to secure your place at this year’s festival.

For more information about our Youth Writing programs and initiatives, visit queenslandwriters.org.au/youthwriting.