What one student had to say…
In school, we are told to suppress our creativity. We have to write generic essays, follow one formula for math and learn certain words in French class. Last spring, I got the wonderful opportunity to go to a writers conference. Each student at the conference got to go to two workshops, one of them being James McCann’s. The workshop was filled with excitement, because all of that suppressed creativity was being released. His workshop helped thirty potential writers find another way to write.
After the workshop I sent him my story that I had been working on for quite some time, Alone in the Dark. The next day, he sent me a list of suggestions that I could use to make my story better, as well as a list of places to get my story published. Long story short, my story got published in Wet Ink and Potluck Magazine. Without James’ help my story would have not been published, let alone I would not have known where to go to get it published.
-Sarah, a student from
the Surrey Young Author’s
Conference 2006