DIY for the Young 'Uns

Tomorrow Sandra Alland and I are teaching a workshop in a high school. It's part of Going to Press, a publishing festival at Marc Garneau Collegiate, and part of the youth initiative of The Scream. Students and teachers and librarians from various area schools come in for this event, and there are small press exhibitors, like Stuart, and various workshops. We did this last year too, and it went pretty well but still, we're nervous.

Our workshop is about making your own zine or chapbook, and we bring in a lot of materials for them to use and design their own covers. We've tried the same structure and activities with adults, but they don't seem to get into the hands-on fun-with-glue-sticks element like the teenagers do. I'm not entirely sure why; we love making stuff! Maybe I'm just a victim of arrested development... But still, adults seem more hesitant to play around with stuff than the seventeen year olds. Any theories on why that is? We develop more self-consciousness as we age?

Anyway, tomorrow we'll be trying to convince a bunch of teenagers that long-arm staplers are really, very cool. You heard it here first.

Cheers

TEENLAND by Northern Pikes.