Complexity in Children's Writing: How to Write Deeply Without Pandering with Jesset Karlen

Children deserve stories that are as rich and meaningful as those we write for adults – they deserve stories that take them seriously.

Finding inspiration in authors such as Ursula K. LeGuin and Diana Wynne Jones, this class will explore how to integrate deep, humanistic themes into children's literature. We will discuss how these writers achieve this impressive feat, then learn about how to implement these concepts into our own writing.

Jesset Karlen is an Indigenous Saulteaux and Métis writer living in Vancouver, Canada, who has served as a judge for various literary awards and contests. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Fantasy is close to his heart, and he hopes to write stories that readers can hold close to their hearts years after reading. His debut novel, The Place Between Words, is set to publish 2027 with Simon & Schuster.

This class is generously funded by the Canadian Poetry Fund, a local donor-advised fund which fosters accessible public educational outreach for poetry and other forms of creative writing through the services of the Vancouver Public Library.