Welcome to the home of S.W.A.T. (Students, Writers And Teachers), Toronto’s first-ever ongoing writers-in-schools program.

Welcome to NOW HEAR THIS!

NOW HEAR THIS! is the literacy outreach arm of the Descant Arts & Letters Foundation. The program connects professional authors with community groups, students and aspiring writers in order to promote Canadian literature and encourage self-expression, critical thinking and empowerment through literacy education. Explore our website to find out more about our projects, writers, how to bring a workshop to your school or organization, and ways to get involved!

This website was recently redesigned with the help of an Ontario Arts Council Compass Grant.

Recently on NOW HEAR THIS!!

Writing challenges for you now that NaNoWriMo is over

Posted by Rachel Hopwood on Dec 7th 2011

Dianna Gunn is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.You can visit her own blog at diannaswritingden.com

BY: DIANNA GUNN

NaNoWriMo is over for the year and hopefully you've finished your novel. The question is, what should you do now? There are a hundred different answers, but I'm hoping that the one you've chosen is to continue writing and look for new challenges. In fact, I'm so hopeful that you've chosen to continue writing and looking for challenges that I've created a list of challenges inspired by NaNoWriMo just for you.

Keep reading for all the tips... after the jump!

WRITE ON! at Workman Arts plus Anthology launch!

Posted by Whitney French on Dec 2nd 2011

In October and November, NOW HEAR THIS! hosted four WRITE ON! workshops with Workman Arts, an organization dedicated to supporting professional artists affected by mental illness. Our workshop facilitator, S.W.A.T. Writer Ibi Kaslik conducted a unique fiction writing workshops, at the beginner level and at the advanced level. Participants were introduced to basic elements of fiction writing challenged to create their own characters! At the advance level, participants were given tools to complete a short story based on the characters created in the beginner class.

WRITE ON! offers creative writing workshops to various organizations, schools and community centres through out Toronto. Many of the workshops are easily customized to fit within the needs of the specific organization. This year NOW HEAR THIS! is offering 5 exciting workshops:

   •   Graphic Novel: Beyond the Comic
   •   Life Writing: Myth, Memoir and Autobiography
   •   The Media is the Message: Understanding Media Texts
   •   The Song is the Poem: Writing with(out) Sound
   •   Grief and Loss: Writing Creatively about Bereavement

Plus December 6th, Tightrope Books will be launching their anthology The Best Canadian Essays 2011, edited by Christopher Doda and our very own Ibi Kaslik! The launch takes place at Dora Keogh Pub, 141 Danforth Ave. and begins at 7pm. Come out and support Ibi and the talented writers featured in this collection of essays! Check out the Facebook event here!

Spread the Love!

Posted by Rachel Hopwood on Dec 1st 2011

Gabriel Holt is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.

BY: GABRIEL HOLT

I knew that there was no way I could go without writing this year. I did not care how much schoolwork I had, how long my classes were, or how little time I had to socialize. I knew that I needed to write. The problem was: how could I fit my writing in with the rest of my schedule? After all, I had essays to write and two jobs to work. It was hardly likely that I would have very much time, or even motivation, to develop my own creative writing.

And then something occurred to me. I had been talking to other people in my program who happened to like creative writing as well. I had been in a creative writing group at my high school, and even been the head of it in my graduating year. As it turned out, a lot of these people had too. We had agreed to swap work, but once the school year started there was simply no time to read what other people had written.

That’s when the divine thunderclap whacked me upside the head: we needed a writers’ group at my college. We needed a place where, once every couple of weeks, people could shut down their computers, drop their textbooks, and taken an hour or so to share inspiration and work. I posed the idea to a guy who had actually founded a writing group in his high school, and together we spread awareness of the new group.

[Keep reading about Gabriel's writing group after the jump!]

Resources to Help you Plan a Novel

Posted by Rachel Hopwood on Nov 29th 2011

Dianna Gunn is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.You can visit her own blog at diannaswritingden.com

BY: DIANNA GUNN

Last week I talked about the differences between writing a novel and a short story. I said that the biggest difference between writing the two forms is the amount of planning you need to create a workable story. While there are still dedicated Pantsers (as in, by-the-seat-of-your-) who never plot out their novels, most of us need an outline to help us structure our novel properly.

But how do you plan a novel? Well, there are several ways to plan a novel, and they're all worth a try — after all, if you don't try more than one method, how can you be sure that the method you're using is really the best one for you? There's a difference between an outline method that works for you and the best outline method for you. You might not believe me now, but you'll know the difference once you find the outlining method that's best for you.

To help you in your quest to find the best outline method for you, I've pulled together a few resources designed for would-be novelists. Read all about them after the jump!

Tears and Joys of NaNoWriMo

Posted by Whitney French on Nov 24th 2011

Gabriel Holt is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.

We have now reached week four of National Novel Writing Month, which, if you didn’t catch Dianna’s post, is the mystical month of November in which people attempt to write fifty thousand-word novels. This post is about my own experiences with NaNoWriMo.

This will be my fourth year attempting NaNoWrimo, but my first year attempting it in earnest. I have started past years with only a vague idea of what I wanted to write about, which of course led me to a complete lack of motivation and planning. Needless to say, I did not win those years. I started to develop some wonderful stories, but somewhere along the way I lost the drive and the knowledge of where I wanted my plot and characters to go. I always start with these wonderfully exciting ideas, but after I work with them for a while the excitement tends to peter out and die. This is naturally one of a writer’s most common ailments. Read more, after the jump!

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