Workshops

The first four Rocking Boat authors came out of our Dancing Wombat workshops. In fact, Rocking Boat would never have been formed if Dancing Wombat and its participants hadn’t come together and cooked up a literary storm.

Dancing Wombat Workshops are our signature workshops. They are specifically designed for people with disability, including autism, mild cognitive impairment, psychosocial disability (mental illness), and other neurodiverse or physical disabilities. Behind the workshops are the many years of professional training and experience of (Dr) Ann Penhallurick. Ann is a psychologist and speech pathologist, a disability consultant, fiction author, a mother, grandmother and a close family member to many people living with disability. She’s spent several decades finding the most effective ways to assist people with disability and/or with a history of trauma to communicate, to positively engage in the world and to develop rich identities that acknowledge their skills and values rather than their ‘deficits’. Ann long ago discovered that creative writing is a very powerful way to achieve this.

Specifically designed workshops are also available to small groups of adolescents or adults with literacy challenges of any etiology and kind. We also work to enable groups, including seniors, who have simply not previously had the opportunity to author a book or a story.

Importantly, Rocking Boat has more overtly 'therapeutic' workshops, strongly based in narrative therapy, for people with a history of personal distress, loss, trauma, incarceration. And/or for people with a history of behaviours which challenge their positive place in their community. See below for more details of workshops. Or ask us!

Do you have to be super-good at writing things down to be an author? The good news is - you don’t. You don’t even have to be really good at reading. But you do need other things.

To be an author, you need ideas and imagination.

To be an author you need to be ready to learn. You need to learn about how to make your ideas into a story that other people will enjoy reading or listening to. (Listening to stories can be a lot of fun.)

Rocking Boat Workshops use talking and listening and thinking to help you become an author. You have to think up the ideas and use your imagination to make them into a good story yourself. But someone else can write down what your ideas are. And someone can read what you said back to you so you can think about it. And change your ideas a bit if you need to.

In Rocking Boat Workshops we love using acting and movement, like dancing, to help us see whether our stories are working out. Sometimes we see whether we need to change them a bit to make them more interesting or fun. This is a good way to learn and enjoy yourself.

And, in the end, you make a book!

All our workshops aim to enable participants to

• Stretch their imaginations, enjoy their own creativity,
• Learn skills they can take away and use in their community interactions,
  including literacy and positive behavioural skills,
• Find new modes of self-expression,
• Develop their self-confidence,
• Develop a richer identity which includes an identity as an author,
• Write a book!
• Have a great time!

We develop story-authoring differently. We don’t rely on writing exercises. Instead, we learn the ingredients of story writing and practice those ingredients – such as developing suspense or having characters overcome obstacles – through speaking and listening, through writing when it suits but also through recording voice, doing performance and through group feedback and collaborative work. (This, we’ve found, is a lot of fun for participants and presenters alike).

After we’ve bounced ideas around in groups, we refine them in one to one sessions with a participant and a trained person. Over time, we practice shaping characters, stories, settings and so on into a book that will communicate with other people. We continue with performance, make our stories better and better by seeing and hearing them acted out. Performance helps all participants talk easily and honestly about what is working and what needs changing in each story.

In workshops with 3 or more participants we generally have ‘scribes’ as well as the facilitator(s) – a person or person who records what the author wants in their book. Similarly, we usually have a person or persons who supports the development of the visual ideas for children’s books and the production of illustrations or collage or photographic to mock-up stage. We don’t have professional illustrators. We do seek volunteer visual artists.

We mostly – but not always - write books for children. Being a children’s author is an excellent way of learning about what to put in a book and what to leave out. It is also a great way to tell a story in a new and exciting way.

We can have workshops where we write longer books – either collaboratively (eg a book of short stories) – or individually.

All our full-length workshops result in a ‘product’ for the participants to take away and keep. This is generally a simply produced, ‘mock-up’ of the participant’s individual book. Four or five copies are provided for participants to distribute to friends/family. More professionally printed books can be made available (additional costs apply) and all books can be submitted to Rocking Boat for formal publication. (Books can also be submitted to other commercial publishers. We do hope for acknowledgement of Rocking Boat Workshops when books are submitted and/or published elsewhere please).

Full workshops generally run a half day to a day a week over a period of approximately 6-8 weeks. However, this time frame can readily be adapted to meet the needs of the workshop participants and auspicing agency (if there is one). It is important to note though that shorter duration writing workshops (eg a one day workshop, or two or three half days) are introductory only. Shorter workshops cover the fun fundamentals, develop skills and confidence, but are not designed for participants to complete a book in the time.

Shorter, over-view workshops for individuals, families and support staff of people with disability, literacy challenges etc are available also.

Workshops can be run as face to face, via Zoom/Skype or a combination of both.

Please fill in our contact form for more information on, or to book, any of the above.