Workshops
Renee Price is a children’s author, song-writer and performer from Newcastle, New South Wales. She has 15 years collective experience in early childhood education, writing and entertainment.
She is the author of Digby’s Moon Mission (2014) and Digby and the Yodelayhee Who? (2017) – illustrated by Anil Tortop, and published through Create It Kids. Digby and the Yodelayhee Who? is listed on the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge Booklist (K-2). Reviews of Renee’s books feature here – www.createitkids.com.au/reviews
Renee performs dramatisations of her picture books to young audiences within early childhood services, primary schools, and at public events. Her feature clip can be viewed here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSlCUp3gfqA&t=18s
Renee is a current member of Australian Society of Authors, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, NSW Writers Centre and Children’s Book Council of Australia (NSW). She is the Publicity and Events Officer for CBCA Newcastle Sub-branch.
For more information, please visit:
Website: www.reneeprice.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ReneePriceWriterPerformer
Digby Fixit website: www.digbyfixit.com
Digby Fixit Facebook page: www.facebook.com/DigbyFixit
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/renee-price
Sharon Giltrow is an Authorcator; an Author Educator. She has been a teacher of children who are hearing impaired and Deaf-Blind. She now teaches young children with Developmental Language Disorder. Sharon is an enthusiastic and inspirational speaker with a passion for developing children’s oral, visual, written, creativity and literacy. She has experience presenting to children from zero- to ten-year-olds. Through Sharon’s author talks students, inspired by a real-life author, will discover the joy of literacy and unlock their hidden creativity.
Sharon’s hilariously acclaimed debut picture book ‘Bedtime, Daddy!’ was released in May 2020. Her follow up picture books ‘Get Ready, Mama’ and ‘Let’s Go Shopping, Grandma!‘ will be released in 2022. Also, in 2022 Sharon’s early middle grade book ‘Samara Rubin and the Utility Belt’ will be released.
Susan Day is passionate about children’s literature. She created ‘Astro’s Adventures’ early-reader chapter books and has written many other titles, including ‘Clarence the Snake from Dunolly’.
‘Astro’s Adventures’ is based on a group of dogs who belong to a secret organisation created to save other dogs from neglect. Their plans are often thwarted by the evil genius, Speed Bump Charlie, a wicked alley cat, and his sidekick, Furball.
Each book Susan creates encourages and promotes the wonderful art of story-telling, and encapsulates her deep understanding of dogs and cats. As each character is based on a real pet, readers will immediately see their own pets portrayed within the pages, and will laugh along with their whacky antics.
Susan developed the ‘Resilience Warriors Workshops’ to help children develop the skills they need to combat depression and anxiety. These workshops are based on her very successful book, ‘Astro is Down in the Dumps’.
Susan shares her country home in Central Victoria with four dogs from the ‘Astro’s Adventures’ series: Rocky, Stella, Alfie and Digger. As well as, Furball, the villainous kitten, three rescue guinea pigs, a three-legged huntsman spider named Trevor, and a very patient husband.
Teena Raffa-Mulligan is a West Australian author who knows an unusual remedy for wrinkles, the secret fuel to put a grandpa into orbit and a drastic solution to the dilemma of a cranky dad. Teena writes quirky, whimsical books for children, with publications in magazines and anthologies, and a diverse range of picture books, junior fiction and MG novels. Her first published picture book was a stranger danger tale that was endorsed by the WA police and education departments of the day and used widely in schools around the country.
Some of her other books include ‘When the Moon is a Smile’, ‘Who Dresses God?’, ‘Friends’, ‘The Apostrophe Posse’, ‘Catnapped’, ‘The Fifty Per Cent Princess and Other Goodnight Reads’, ‘The Seven Day Dragon’, and ‘Parramatta Rosie ‘. ‘Monelli & Me’ is Teena’s first novel for YA readers. Teena’s step-by-step guide to story writing, ‘You Can Be A Writer’, is her latest picture book, released in 2021.
Teena’s writing life has also included a career as a journalist and editor. She is passionate about books and writing and presents talks and workshops to encourage children and adults to write their own stories. For younger children Teena dresses up as a characters from one of her books to show them writers can do anything, be anyone and go anywhere in their imagination while writing their stories.
Visit her website at www.teenaraffamulligan.com or find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TeenaRaffaMulligan
Wendy Haynes has completed a Diploma in Creative Writing at Southern Cross University. Her writing focuses on middle-grade fantasy, historical, and contemporary stories for children, picture books, junior fiction, and YA.
Her first picture book Hayden’s Bedtime, was published in March 2019 and is on the 2019 NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge list. Her new book The Door in The Woods: Book 1 Hollow Woods a middle-grade fantasy fiction series is due out in 2020.
She believes that having a regular writing practice, and understand the device at your disposal, is the key to not only completing a story but in building the skills required to produce a worthy manuscript.
She was a judge for the Port Writer’s In-house competition for the creative non-fiction category in 2018, and one of the judges of the fiction category in 2019. She was one of the judges for the CYA Competition for 2019 and a board member for Hunter Writer’s Centre.
Wendy won first prize for her short story Going Nowhere, at Port Writers In-house competition 2018, and enjoys helping and motivating writers and has developed a mentorship program to help writers tell stories. Armed with a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, she conducts writing workshops on and offline through her business. http://writingforkeeps.com.au/
Being part of a writing community Wendy has volunteered for the roles of the President, Vice President, and Treasurer of Port Writers Inc, a not for profit local writing group bringing writing workshops and presentations, as well as writing exercises to the group.