Whether you are writing picture books, middle grade or young adult literature, to reflect the full and varied reality of human experience, you need to respectfully and thoughtfully depict secondary characters with a range of backgrounds and cultural beliefs. Even when your protagonists largely mirror you, can you say the same for all their friends?

Each character you create exists within a global village and within a particular nation, neighborhood, social class and ability level. They also live within an ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, family and peer group—each with its own distinct culture. Awareness of your characters’ cultural beliefs will deepen their presence on the page.

Through a discussion of cultural elements in selected picture books and novels, Karen will introduce tools you can use to identify your characters’ deep-level cultural beliefs, offering insights into their motivations and story arcs. This class will focus on family culture as that’s where we first learn and express our beliefs, although these cultural tools can be applied to other cultural groups. You will develop awareness of your cultural beliefs as compared to your characters’ and consider how and when to write within your cultural elements, bridge cultural gaps and avoid bias through omission.

There are no pre-assigned readings for this class, but you will have on-the-spot writing prompts to explore.

Note: Karen speaks from her own identity elements and does not represent any cultural group. She will share her personal identity statement with the class and will encourage you to explore your own as a tool to understanding our cultural lenses.

ABOUT KAREN:

Karen Krossing is the award-winning author of many books for children and teens, and a mentor of new and emerging voices. Her titles include the picture books One Tiny Bubble and Sour Cakes, as well as the novels Monster vs. Boy, Punch Like a Girl, Bog, Cut the Lights, and The Yo-Yo Prophet. She won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Canada and has been a finalist for the Ontario Library Association White Pine Award and the Joan F. Kaywell Books Save Lives Award, among other honors. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she completed a critical thesis on character cultural literacy. Since 2009, she has co-created language and cultural training focused on the needs of newcomers to Canada, which helped to inspire her thesis. Karen lives with her family in Toronto, on the traditional territory of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishinabeg and the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit.