A book by participants in

Voices on the Coast

A book by participants in

Voices on the Coast

2011

All text, images and information in this book is

Copyright

Judy Barrass and Contributors

2011

backstudio@yahoo.com.au

CONTRIBUTORS

Workshop Two June 6th

Judy Barrass

Brandan Aitken

Tom Nwberry

Anonymous

Shaymus Frawley

Chris Stanes

A;exandria Griffiths

Sam Horne

Kaleb Green

Prima Chantarapratin

Kaden Porter

Gideon McGowan

Sam Hausmann

Anonymous2

Immanuel Lutheran College, Buderim, and the University of the

Sunshine Coast present the award winning youth literature festi-

val Voices on the Coast for South-East Queensland students at

the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia each

autumn/early winter.

The aim of the festival is to inspire young people to enjoy the

world of reading, writing, drawing and performing through their ex-

periences each year.

This book has been compiled from contributions made by partici-

pants in Judy Barrass’s workshop at the 2011 festival ‘Low Tech

to High Tech’.

More information about Voices on the Coast can be found on the

festival website at

http://www.voicesonthecoast.com.au/

INTRODUCTION

The ‘High tech to Low tech’ workshop is about simple ways to

put your writing up on the internet.

The workshop is also about how to build a ‘story’. You don’t

need imagination and you don’t need a storyline before you

begin. This is about sharing information.

The purpose of most of what we read and write is to share

information.

Many people earn their living by writing. They include journal-

ists, people who write manuals, textbooks and instructions,

speech writers., and public servants.

Think about all the things you read. Magazines, newspapers,

labels, wikipaedia, advertising, history notes, the cornflakes

packet, the small print on your credit card statement, and

the instructions on how to use your new Playstation. Someone

has to write all that stuff.

So for this exercise participants in

the workshop are asked to forget

about being creative and arty and

thinking up cool imaginative stories,

and to just to write information.

They were asked to pretend they

were writing for a magazine or a

newspaper or a letter, that the

‘story’ is information they need to

get across to the reader.

Mmmm

What will

I write?

They gathered their information by asking the sorts of

questions journalists ask when they are putting together a

news story.

WHO

WHAT

WHERE

WHY

WHEN

HOW

A story can be written on almost any subject by answering

these questions. It sometimes helps to pretend you are be-

ing interviewed by a reporter. Or better still, pretend you

are the reporter writing a story for a magazine. Or a blog.

Now tell me every-

thing. Who, what,

where, why, when,

how?

The subject for this book is

‘Something I Like’

Each participant in the work-

shop was asked to prepare at

least one page of writing for

the book, telling us about some-

thing they like. Images could al-

so be included.

The pages were photographed

during the workshop session,

transferred to a computer

and uploaded to make a virtual

on-line book.

Thank you to everyone who par-

ticipated and contributed to the

book.

We hope you enjoy reading about

what we like.