By Dongyun Kwon
Healesville-based authors are calling people with autism to participate in a series of writing workshops they are hosting.
Auti-magination successfully taught creative writing skills to participants last year.
By the end of the series of workshops, participants were able to finish writing their own stories which were officially published in a book.
Auti-magination organiser Sandra Thom-Jones said the creative writing workshops are returning thanks to support from Yarra Ranges Council.
“Last year’s workshops were a great success, so we received funding from the Yarra Ranges Council to do the project again,” she said.
“This year, we’re running four workshops at the Lilydale Community House on Saturdays between March and June.
“At each workshop, we will focus on a different aspect of creative writing. We’ll talk about things like developing characters and settings, and how to plan a story, but as we go along, the participants will also be working on stories together, writing drafts, sharing what they’re working on with each other, working on these stories at home.
“By the end of the four workshops, they will have some completed stories, so that we can publish a book of short stories, same as we did last year.”
Sandra Thom-Jones and her son Lincoln Jones, both are authors diagnosed with autism, will lead the workshops.
The venue will be changed from Healesville Living and Learning Centre to Lilydale Community House.
Thom-Jones said the reason for the location change is to include more people who are based in different parts of the shire.
“Yarra Ranges is such a big council, and we’re aware that travel can be difficult for a lot of people, so we just decided to move to somewhere else,” she said.
Auti-magination is open to autistic people of all ages with different levels of writing skills.
“Last year, our youngest was eight and our oldest was in their 80s,” the event organiser said.
“We’d be happy to have people who are experienced writers and people who would like to try writing but have been put off by their school experience.”
The workshops will be held from 1pm to 4pm on Saturdays (29 March, 3 May, 31 May and 28 June).
For more information or to sign up for Auti-magination, please visit the following website, autisticprofessor.com/autimagination
