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03/07-03/28 Writing Children’s Literature

Instructor: Tina Tocco
Dates: 4 Thursdays: March 7, 14, 21, 28
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm EST
Location: Zoom
Cost: $200 Nonmembers, $128 Writer/Reader Members, $112 Senior, Teacher, Student, Military/Veteran, Librarian Members

Have you always wanted to write stories for kids, but never knew where to start? This class will let you get your feet wet in this fun genre. Don’t be nervous about sparking your creativity! We’ll use weekly in-class prompts — everything from starter sentences to images, magical objects to inanimate objects — to help you generate new work in every session. In addition, you’ll receive (completely optional) take-home exercises to keep you writing during the week. Expect to write to at least one prompt in every class and to comment on your classmates’ pieces. Since this workshop is generative, we’ll stick to positive feedback and optional sharing to keep everyone’s experience relaxed and fun. Come explore the children’s writing genre while generating the beginnings of multiple stories (maybe even some you’d like to build on). New writers and writers new to the children’s genre are welcome. Geared toward writing for middle grade (ages 8-12) and young adult (ages 13-18).

Read our Faculty Spotlight Interview with Tina Tocco here.

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Course Instructor: Tina Tocco

Tina Tocco is a Pushcart Prize nominee. As a writer for both children and adults, her work has appeared in kiddie magazines, such as Highlights, Cricket, Humpty Dumpty, AppleSeeds, and Odyssey, and in literary journals, including New Ohio Review, River Styx, Crab Creek Review, Passages North, Potomac Review, Portland Review, Sou’wester, and Italian Americana. Tina’s writing has also been featured in Wild Things: The Best of Italian Americana (Fordham University Press, 2008), The Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press, 2019), Best Nonfiction Food (Woodhall Press, 2020), and other anthologies. A runner-up for the SCBWI’s Work-in-Progress Grant, Tina was also an honorable mention in the River Styx Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest and a finalist in CALYX’s Flash Fiction Contest. Her interview on flash and the craft of writing, “No Wasted Words,” appears in Roanoke Review. In 2021, she was a reader-in-residence for flash fiction journal SmokeLong Quarterly. Tina earned her MFA in creative writing from Manhattanville College, where she was editor-in-chief of Inkwell. She has taught adults and kids for Hugo House, GrubStreet, Hudson Valley Writers Center, Arts Escape, Kids Short Story Connection, the SCBWI, and other organizations.