Joel Yanofsky

Literary

Contact Info

Email address
Website address

Experience working with

  • Cycle 3 Elementary
  • Secondary 1 & 2
  • Secondary 3 & 4
  • Secondary 5
  • CEGEP

I regularly explore the following Broad Areas of Learning/Themes in my work

Listed in the Quebec Culture in the Schools Repertoire

  • No

I have experience working with

  • Quebec Writers' Federation Workshops and Mentor program.

I can facilitate virtual creative experiences

  • No

Travel

  • I am available for travel within the same day
  • I am available for travel overnight
I am a freelance writer. My credits include newspaper columns and reviews, magazine articles and six books. My last two books -- Bad Animals: A Father's Accidental Education in Autism and Mordecai & Me: An Appreciation of a Kind -- were memoirs and highlight what makes me unique. As both a writer and a teacher (Concordia Journalism Department and QWF), I have put an emphasis on the value and the skill involved in telling personal stories.

Creative Approach and Experiences Offered

My aim is to encourage students of all ages to explore the best-kept secret they have – their own stories. Personal writing, in non-fiction as well as fiction, requires young writers to be honest and intimate and, at the same time, avoid the inevitable and enormous pitfall of self-indulgence. Employing workshops and focused discussion, I will help students grapple with the challenges of personal writing -- like how to employ the "I" effectively in their narrative -- as well as discover its considerable rewards. Most of all, my goal is to encourage students to find the story they are meant to tell. Often, it's the one they can't see but that's right in front of their faces. With younger students, I begin with a group approach. Together, we discuss the stories they might tell and write a beginning to it together. Then, if there's time or on their own time, they continue shaping that story. Invariably, this becomes an exercise in technique as well as self-confidence and expression.
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