Kindling Words East is a virtual four-day retreat held in the comfort of your home, or a place where you choose to sequester. We encourage you to set the time aside, pack a bag, lock the door, as if you were spending the time away. Note: Being online all day is more screen time than most of us want. Be sure to schedule time away from the screen to process what you’re learning. All of these sessions are offerings, so take what feels great, and take a break when you need to.
KW-East Virtual Schedule
7:30 Each day opens with a live stream yoga class. Stretch and breathe and get centered.
9:00 Kindle the Muse
Timed prompts for writers or illustrators. Wake up your muse and play freely without pressure or expectation. You can put your ideas for prompts on the registration.
9:30-12:30 AUTHORS and ILLUSTRATORS choose from two options: CREATE or CRITIQUE
CREATE:
a virtual room is waiting for you with a collection of colleagues and friends. As if you are sitting in comfortable chairs around a fire, working in silence, you all work together. Although the others will be silent, in the background, their presence can give you both company and focus, so these three hours become powerfully productive.
CRITIQUE:
Sign up on the registration form to critique a full manuscript. The groups will be formed well in advance of the retreat, and you work within your group to determine the depth and detail you would like to go into. You have four mornings, and can use all 12 hours, or any portion of them. You are welcome to join the CREATE sessions when your critique group is not meeting.
Manuscripts or dummies get shared early so everyone has the ability to read and respond before coming. We will form groups based on the length and genre of the work. This is for both Authors and Illustrators.
EDITORS have these three morning hours to meet in a private virtual room and talk shop. The editor session will be moderated and guided by an experienced, inspiring editor.
12:30 – 1:30 LUNCH – you have the option to join others in small group, casual conversations
1:30 – 5:30 SPARK SPACE
Spark Space is a block of time each day when you get to decide what is most on your mind with other interested people. The topics range from “dealing with agents” to “research sources for middle grade nonfiction” to “Own Voices” to “best ideas for virtual school visits…” Anything goes, as long as it has something to do with our children’s literature world.
People propose topics; we put the full list out to the group of attendees, and people sign up for which discussions they want to go to. We will cap the number so that we’re able to have a real discussion while being online. Each discussion will have a moderator.
The person who proposed the topic can, but does not have to, prepare something to kick off the discussion. They are not expected to lead the discussion.
IMPORTANT: DIVERSITY TRAINING
Kindling Words is hiring a diversity trainer to do a session on each of the four days during Spark Space.
In other businesses, people get this kind training regularly. But as self-employed artists, we do the best we can by reading and conversations. And it shows. Kindling Words is filling that hole by offering diversity training to everyone.
We are going so far as to say that we insist anyone who has not done formal training attend one of these sessions. Even if you have had the good fortune to have done some of the work, we encourage you to come. There are always more layers to unpack.
We will continue to offer this training each year so that we can move forward as a group. Our goal is to support the transformation of our entire community of children’s book creators.
5:30 – 6:30 Cocktail Hour – get a drink and connect with friends, new and old
EVENINGS
THURSDAY –
enjoy your dinner while watching a slide show of all the people who are attending Kindling Words this year. The playlist will make you want to sing. And hey, why not? Another silver lining.
after dinner, we will play a game to discover something new about each person coming. It will be crazy. It will be funny. It will nuts.
FRIDAY
Three presenters, Author, Illustrator and Editor will each give an inspiring talk on the theme. More about this on the Speaker page
SATURDAY
after dinner, we will have our Author and Illustrator Candlelight Readings. Sign up to participate on your registration form. This must be POLISHED but UNPUBLISHED work. Authors are limited to 250 words. Illustrators may show 10 slides from one work.