December ’24 Update! The early reader I was working on at the retreat was acquired by Simon Spotlight! Yay for inspiration and time to work. I highly recommend Highlights!

I had the great honor of joining Debbi Michiko Florence, Kashmira Sheth, and Nawal Qarooni for an in-person Highlights Foundation retreat October 13th-16th. It was my first visit to the property, and the experience held up to the hype!

I wasn’t sure what to expect as the Retreat Assistant, and I’m glad I came up to the property early.

I was invited to do two knowledge share workshops. For the first event, I joined attendees in the Art Coop for a character collage workshop. We started with an “exquisite corpse” exercise as a warmup. We named our creations and made up a little story for them. Then we made our own colored and painted collage papers and cut them up to create unique characters. Mine was called Phil the Philter Phish.

For the last workshop of the retreat, I shared a presentation on Early Readers–what they are, why they are important to emerging readers, and how to craft and pitch them. The course also covered writing with illustrations in mind, the three-act story structure, and the basics of dummy booking.

From Debbi Michiko Florence, I loved learning about developing chapter book characters for a series, and from Kashmira Sheth and Nawal Qarooni, I learned about building worlds and characters from your personal experiences and family dynamics.

I loved every minute, and the rave reviews of the food were not exaggerated. I can’t wait to return! If you would like to attend a workshop or go for a personal retreat, find all the information here: https://www.highlightsfoundation.org/

If you would like me to teach at your next children’s book writing and/or illustrating event, email me at windnessbooks (at) gmail (.) com to work out details.