Summer 2025 Workshops
- The Margins Matter: Reading Peritext Critically – May 7 – 21, 2025: Online synchronous and asynchronous
- Bootcamp for your Book – Once a week during the month of July: Online synchronous
- Advanced Picture Book Writing – July 7 – 11, 2025: In-person
Questions?
The Margins Matter: Reading Peritext Critically
May 7 – 21, 2025: Online synchronous and asynchronous
This 20-hour workshop is designed for anyone who teaches, makes, publishes, or analyzes books for children and young adults. If you have spent any amount of time with books for children and young adults, you have undoubtedly paid some attention to the books’ peritext. Peritext refers to the elements that surround the main text of a book, such as covers, endpapers, title pages, and author/illustrator notes. Increasingly, creators of books for young people are relying on these spaces in the margins to provide additional information about the narrative, including essential cultural and historical context. However, readers are not always prepared to give peritext the attention it deserves. Whether you’re looking to publish, create, teach, or study children’s books, you will leave the workshop with a deeper understanding of how to leverage all components of a book to create more engaging and meaningful reading experiences for young people.
Instructors
Sarah Jackson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of early, middle, and elementary education
Rebekah Dengener, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of elementary and literacy education
Bootcamp for your Book
Once a week during the month of July: Online Synchronous
Finished a first draft? Or have a solid chunk of a novel? Now what? The best writers are really revisers. Join this intensive to find the right ingredients to transform your rough pages into a compelling book for young people. Writing demands complex characters, high stakes, a layered world, and research. In this workshop, the emphasis will be on the building blocks of craft: the one-line pitch, voice and character, worldbuilding, plot and pace, and revision.
Instructor
Dhonielle Clayton
Bestselling author, president/founder of Cake Creative and Electric Postcard Entertainment
Advanced Picture Book Writing
July 7 – 11, 2025: In-Person
Just because picture books are short doesn’t mean they’re simple. Lift the lid on the underlying layers that take a picture book from good to great in this weeklong workshop.
Instructor
Julie Hedlund
Children’s book author and founder of the 12×12 Picture Book Writing Challenge