Today I attended a workshop facilitated by Writers Victoria. It had been a while. Between full time work and raising two mad-as-baboons little boys, I rarely have time for such classes.

I am so glad I attended this one! The topic was “other voices”, covering the fundamentals of creating characters that are believable and speak for themselves (rather than being projections of the author).

The tutor was the excellent Eli Glasman (author of The Boy’s own Manual to being a Proper Jew), a knowledgeable, flexible, humble teacher who had something of value for everyone in the room.

I won’t rehash the course content, as the benefit was in exploring new ideas, doing the practical exercises (I ended up writing about an alternative world version of Eli, a Rastafarian obsessed with brushing his teeth, and a man tortured by the lives he took while drink driving), and engaging with Eli and the other students.

You can, however, read a short interview of Eli on the topic here.

The most valuable part of the entire day, however, was Eli’s final, timely reminder: the heart of writing is connecting with the reader.

I hope that, through this experience and others like it, I can continue to do that with my work.