How to hook your reader with humour
CELEBRATED American children’s author Dr Mira Reisberg will be in Cairns this month to hold a workshop for local children’s book creators.
Dr Reisberg is an awardwinning illustrator, author, editor, art director, teacher and former literary agent.
She is in Australia as a keynote speaker at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Sydney, but has been persuaded by Cairns Tropical Writers Festival to give a Cairns workshop as her only other Australian appearance.
Festival program director Eve Stafford said the half-day workshop, How to Hook Your Reader with Humour, is for children’s picture book writers up to middle grade.
“This is a huge opportunity for local children’s book creators, who have limited access to hands-on professional development,” Eve said.
“Mira is known in the US as the ‘picture book whisperer’, breathing creativity into others to help them become the author and artists they want to be,” she said.
Dr Reisberg says humour is vital in children’s literature.
“Since my calling in this life is to get and keep kids reading, I simply answered the call.
“Whether you’re writing a funny story, adding humour to an existing story or softening a tough story with some light relief, authors and illustrators should have access to the golden key to getting the funny flowing,” she said.
After leaving academia in 2012, Dr Reisberg founded and still teaches at the Children’s Book Academy, an online writing and illustrating school.
How to Hook Your Reader with Humour is at Cairns City Library meeting room, 9am-12pm February 20.
The cost is $70 or $60 for members of Queensland Writers Centre, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators or Tropical Writers Inc. Visit www.cairnstropicalwritersfestival.com online.