NEW Case Study: Emily Chan

Graduate

Emily Chan attended The Writing Workshop from Year 1 to Year 12 (2011-2023) and is now studying creative writing at Macquarie University. She reflects on her creative writing journey over the years in The Writing Workshop’s after-school creative writing workshops, below.

In the summer of 2011, a little girl, in all senses of the word, released her mum’s nudging hand and stepped into her first creative writing workshop, clinging to her backpack which contained what was left of the familiar – her sloshing water bottle, a neatly wrapped sandwich for lunch, a notebook and a pencil case crammed with sparkly gel pens, as she blinked wide-eyed at the unfamiliar – the group of noisy children, the sunlit room they were in and the funny man who introduced himself as ‘Dranreb’. 

At the end of that day, the little girl ran excitedly back to her mum, proud to share the day’s accomplishments: her half-drunk water bottle, an empty sandwich wrapper and a notebook full of sparkly scribbles where her newly created characters lived. What her mum had anticipated in signing her child up for the summer holidays workshop, was a day of peace and relaxation away from the grabby hands and blabby mouth of a six-year-old, but little did either of them know it would turn into a passion to consume and create written wonders inventing and exploring worlds both different and alike to our own. 

In Term 1 of the following year, my mum enrolled me in The Writing Workshop’s weekly workshops; what would, as the years rolled by, turn out to be the first term of many. I was no writing prodigy by any means (in fact, I would argue quite the opposite), but Bernard encouraged me to keep writing. And so, I did.

On the surface, creative writing gave me a place to record all those conversations I’d had with the clouds who leaned down to talk to me as I daydreamed from my car seat. A place for me to whisk up exciting new people, friends and foes, new places, wonderous and nightmarish, and afterwards, revisit those stories that I had created - just like I could with the stories that stood in polite rows on my bookshelf until I picked them out to read again. Thus, kindergarten Emily’s dream occupation of becoming a teacher so she could hand out stickers all day made way for Year 1 Emily’s aspirations of becoming an author. Yet, more importantly, I think creative writing also gave me a place to express myself when I otherwise didn’t have the space or didn’t know how to. Did I expect the blossoming wonder, enjoyment and passion for writing I would gain over the course of the weekly workshops? No. Have I absolutely loved it? Yes! 

Throughout the years, Bernard would ask me, as people often do to make conversation with youngsters, what I wanted to do when I was older. This became a question I often asked myself or became increasingly pressed to seriously consider by the adults and peers around me especially as I got older and the many decisions I had to make for my post-school plans crept closer and closer. This was a question with an answer that, much to my discomfort, blurred rather than focused as time went on and I was left utterly lost, without the certainty of my younger selves’ aspirations to guide me.   

In a recent conversation I had with Bernard, he recalled that when he asked me what I wanted to do a few years ago, I answered, “I want to make things”. I find this to be an (almost) full circle moment as I now prepare to embark on my new journey in life where I’ll continue to “make” stories through studying creative writing at university. As of right now, I still cannot answer the age-old question of “what I want to be when I’m older”, only that I know I want writing to remain in my life, as it has, challenging me yet also comforting me for the past twelve years.  

Emily Chan

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