Imagine. Explore. Create
Ready to level up your writing game? Explore our thirteen dynamic workshops at Young Writers Con. They are fun, creative, and run by talented Klein ISD teachers who know how to make creative writing fun. It’s your chance to glow up your imagination and take your storytelling to the next level. Which workshops will you choose?
Mic Drop Moments - Dialogue Readers Will Remember
Want to keep your readers hooked from start to finish? This workshop dives into the art of writing dialogue. Writers will explore how strong dialogue builds tension, sharpens conflict, and avoids filler through hands-on activities and quick writes. By the end, participants will have practical strategies for creating conversations that linger with readers long after the final line.
Taught by Angela Willingham, a seasoned educator who teaches DC English IV at Klein Forest and serves as an adjunct professor at Lone Star College.
Build a Trope Toolkit – Tropes as Craft Tools
Tropes aren’t just story ideas—they’re powerful tools writers use to control pacing, tension, and emotion. Join Angela Willingham in this workshop. Writers will break down familiar tropes to understand why they work and how to use them intentionally rather than predictably. Through hands-on activities and creative twists, participants will learn how to bend, remix, or subvert tropes to strengthen their stories and surprise readers.
Where Will You Take Your Reader - World Building Beginner Workshop
Where Will You Take Your Reader - World Building Advanced Workshop
Ready to bring your fantasy writing to life? This workshop will teach you how to create vivid, immersive worlds that captivate your readers and set the stage for epic adventures. Led by Joshua Pickard from Wunderlich, you’ll explore the creative depths of your imagination to uncover hidden worlds waiting to be discovered. Through interactive exercises, you’ll gain the tools to turn your ideas into unforgettable landscapes. Whether it’s magical realms, futuristic landscapes, or anything in between, this session will help you shape the perfect backdrop for your story. Don’t just tell your readers a story—transport them to a whole new world!
Writing Dynamic Characters with Emotional Truth
Great characters make unforgettable stories. In this workshop, Vanessa Riley from Klein Oak, a seasoned DC English teacher, will help you bring your characters to life with emotional depth and dynamic traits. You’ll learn how to flesh out personalities, craft compelling backstories, and create characters that drive your story forward. Discover how to make readers fall in love, connect deeply, or even passionately despise your characters. Through practical exercises and expert guidance, you’ll master the art of character development that hooks readers and keeps them invested in every twist and turn. Get ready to make your characters unforgettable!
Penning Poetry - A Beginners Workshop
Penning Poetry - An Advanced Workshop
Ready to elevate your poetry? Join Stephen Coulon from Klein Cain as he guides writers through the art of refining their craft.
You will learn techniques to deepen your imagery, strengthen your voice, and create poems that resonate on a profound level. Discover how to push your boundaries, experiment with form, and infuse your work with new layers of meaning. Whether you’re preparing for publication or just striving to perfect your style, these sessions will help you take your poetry to the next level. Come ready to challenge yourself and let your words soar!
Choose Your Adventure and Find Your Genre
In this workshop, Jennifer Siger from Klein High School will guide young writers through the exciting process of discovering which genre best fits their story ideas. Writers will explore how different genres shape tone, conflict, and reader expectations through interactive examples and creative exercises.
Participants will leave with clarity, confidence, and a clear direction for turning ideas into purposeful stories.
The Art and Craft of Revision
Great writing isn’t finished in the first draft—and this workshop shows why revision is where stories truly come alive. Writers will learn how revising strengthens clarity, sharpens voice, deepens characters, and turns “almost there” drafts into polished pieces. Through fun, low-pressure activities like revision challenges, before-and-after transformations, and collaborative feedback games, students will see revision as creative—not corrective. This session helps writers rethink revision as an essential part of the writing process rather than a final chore. The workshop will be facilitated by Jennifer Siger, who brings practical strategies and an encouraging approach to helping young writers level up their work.
Experimental Prose
You’ve learned all the rules of story writing, now it’s time to break them! Led by Allie Drain from Klein Collins, this workshop is all about expanding storytelling beyond the scope of the traditional novel and discovering what happens when you do. Young writers will learn how playing with the format, plot structure, point of view, and pacing of a story can add to the narrative and create even more emotional depth. Writers will leave feeling empowered to take risks, bend expectations, and explore bold new ways to tell their stories.
Video Game Design
Think writing is just for poetry and novels? Think again! In this workshop, Allie Drain from Klein Collins will lead students into the world of video game narratives, where they will discover what makes this growing industry so unique. From designing playable characters to creating a choice-driven plot, young writers will learn what it takes to create a successful game and leave ready create an engaging narrative that players will want to experience again and again. Let’s play!
Pacing, Plotting and Problems for Beginners
Pacing, Plotting and Problems - Advanced Workshop
Every great story needs movement—and that comes from strong plot and meaningful conflict. In this workshop, Laila Nafees from Klein Forest will help young writers learn how to pace scenes, build tension, and create problems that push characters to act. Writers will leave with practical tools for turning ideas into stories that hook readers and keep them turning pages. They’ll explore how obstacles, stakes, and turning points shape a story’s momentum and force characters to make meaningful choices. By breaking down plot into manageable pieces, writers gain confidence in building stories that feel intentional, engaging, and impossible to put down.
One Scene, Five Ways
What happens when you tell the same story in completely different ways? In this workshop, Angie Richard from Klein Forest will have writers experiment with rewriting a single scene using different genres, points of view, and tones to see how each choice reshapes meaning and mood. Participants will rotate through a fast-paced, game-style activity where prompts and constraints challenge them to rethink the same moment again and again. By sharing and comparing versions, writers will see how small craft choices create big changes—and leave with confidence to experiment in their own work.
