Category Archives: Students

WingBeat with Creative Dragon Siane Lea

Siane Lea threads her love of suspense into every story she creates, whether it’s dangerous dinosaurs, secret fairy worlds or kids on a quest.

The Toowoomba East State School student’s greatest dream (apart from owning a pony) is to have a collection of her short stories published as a book.

“I like coming to Creative Dragons, I want to learn more about my stories and the craft of writing,” Siane said.

Quick Q&A: Siane Elizabeth Lea

Age: 11

Favourite genre: “Mystery. I like to try to solve the mystery.”

Favourite colour: Aqua

Favourite breakfast: Croissants

What are you writing? “Short stories. I want to create a book of 10 short stories.”

Cat or dog lover: Neither. Horse lover.

Three storybook characters you’d love to have lunch with: Estrella, Tijo and Hold On (and so many more!)

Three things you’d need to pack if you were being kidnapped by dragons: The ability to make friends with dragons, and food and water that the dragons can’t take away from you.

Favourite possession: Family.

Favourite book: The Horses of the Dawn series.

What gift do you never-ever wish to be given? The ‘gift’ of a curse.

Creative Dragons will run after-school creative writing classes at Toowoomba East State School on Tuesday afternoons during Term 2. For more information, visit registrations or email cherie@creativedragons.com.au

WingBeat with Creative Dragon Celina Mouzouris

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Celina Mouzouris is so enthralled by the world of dragons that it’s hard to believe she hasn’t yet sprouted scales and wings.

“I’ve been drawing mythical creatures since I was five but then—out of nowhere—a few months ago, five dragons jumped into my head and I started writing. That was the first day of Term 4, last year,” the ten-year-old said.

Celina’s multiple-book fantasy series centres around five guardian dragons who come together to save their world from evil dragons.

“Normally, I like the baddies better than the goodies, but my heroes—Midiran, Drainbow, Winstance, Portia and Viggo—are very interesting. Midiran is the hero and his best friend is Portia, who is very smart. Drainbow is the strong and stupid one,” she said.

Creative Dragons is looking forward to seeing Celina complete her dragon series, which is filled with entertaining characters and action.

Quick Q&A: Celina M

Age: 10

Favourite genre: Fantasy fiction. “I love reading and writing about mythical creatures like dragons and leviathans.”

Favourite colour: Aqua.

Favourite food: Homemade chicken nuggets.

Favourite breakfast: Hash browns.

What are you writing? Midiran’s Fleet.

Cat or dog lover: “No. It’s all dragons.”

Three storybook characters you’d love to have lunch with: Direclaw, Skelatonar and Darkdestiny (PS: These are all dragons).

Three things you’d need to pack if you were kidnapped by dragons: “Who cares? Just let them take me…”

Favourite possession: My drawing skills.

Favourite book: Talons of Power (Book 9 of the Wings of Fire series by Tui T Sutherland)

What gift do you never-ever wish to be given? To control dust mites.

Even SpongeBob loves Creative Dragons

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It’s been a tough year for the Bundaberg region, being hit by tornado-type winds and the region’s biggest floods in recorded history.

Fortunately, Creative Dragons writing classes have returned to the Bundaberg Regional Library in the city and children will soon be able to use both experience and imagination to create masterpieces in 2013.

Dates for Term 2 are Thursday, May 2, 9, 16 and 23 and Thurs, June 6. There will be no classes on May 30 due to the Bundaberg Show Holiday. Two classes will run on Thursday afternoons: The first from 3.45pm until 4.40pm and the second from 4.45pm until 5.40pm.

Classes will be conducted by Young Adult fantasy author and long-time journalist Cherie Curtis (that’s her pictured with SpongeBob SquarePants above – SpongeBob’s the one with the YELLOW HEAD). Classes are not limited to SpongeBob SquarePants. Timelords, daleks, dragons and ordinary school children are also invited to enrol.

Email: cherie (at) creativedragons (dot) com (dot) au

Creative Dragon flies into Walkervale

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Waking before the crack of dawn to squeeze in an early morning writing class before school every Monday resulted in a special reward for seven dedicated Walkervale students in late November.

Kids Get Published members (aka the Walkervale Writers) were delighted to meet and participate in an advanced “Show, Not Tell” workshop with local author Cherie Curtis (aka Cheryse Durrant) at the school’s Innovation Centre on November 19.

“Group coordinators Lee Peno and Alexandra Irwin told me these seven children had been extremely dedicated to their writing all year and never missed a class. This workshop was to reward them for their efforts – and I was delighted to discover they were not only talented but extremely polite,” Cherie said.

During the workshop, students discovered the major differences between showing and telling, and how to improve their writing using a set of 12 important tips. They also brainstormed on the whiteboard to turn a boring “telling” scene into a vibrant piece of “showing”.

This is not the first time the Walkervale Writers have been treated to a workshop by a professional writer in 2012. Author/illustrator Dr Cameron Stelzer visited students earlier this year. The stories they wrote from this visit were later printed in the school’s souvenir Write Night Collection of Stories book.

Walkervale Writers presented Cherie with a copy of their story book and a box of chocolates at the end of the workshop. “It was lovely meeting these talented students and I’m looking forward to hearing updates on their writing in the future,” Cherie said.

Dragons strut their stuff at final 2012 class

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Exuberance mingled with melancholy as our Junior and Senior Dragons traipsed across the carpeted floor of the Bundaberg Library for their final writing class of 2012.

For the past few months, we have stepped into the fascinating personas of fictional heroes and heroines – we have harboured Chosen Ones, grappled with unwanted gifts, fought off demons, sobered drunk relatives and dated Boy Bands.

We fastened our seatbelts as our spaceships destroyed empires, our young bodies took bullets and we lay listless in hospital, enabling us to add introspection to our plight 🙂

We learnt how to describe our senses and how to show not tell, and we discovered the wickedly slippery interrobang while crash-coursing into punctuation (I’m not sure how “wickedly” slipped in there when we know not to use “ly” adverbs).

Three-dimensional daleks rocked our meeting room with “Exterminate“, birthday cake left no crumbs at all (absolutely not on the floor) and we discovered that not all Freddo Frogs arrive perfectly formed.

We analysed the importance of false teeth and lasagne. We screamed, cried and shapeshifted – we even had tissues for those days when we laughed or cried too hard (and Ysa never led the laughter fray).

But most of all (and of course we never start a sentence with “but”), we crafted solid friendships with other young writers who will be there for us throughout the good and the bad of future rough (and polished?) drafts.

As your 2012 teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed this creative and joyful term. I feel honoured to have shared your dreams and writing (and laughter) with you and I’m looking forward to 2013 filling the Bundaberg Library with lots more fun and laughter – just don’t tell the librarians! After all… Shhsh! We’re meant to be quiet in there! Cherie 🙂