Writing for Children
Instructor: Mahnoor Azeem
Stories do not live in words alone. In this workshop, we will explore how text shapes powerful, layered narratives in children’s picture books. We will think about the shape of stories for young readers—how they move, pause, stretch, and surprise—and how meaning unfolds across a sequence of pages.
Through writing, close reading, and occasional doodling, we will play with pacing, story beats, and narrative voice. What does a child notice first—the gesture, the quiet detail in the corner? How much can a story show, and how much must it tell? Where can space invite curiosity, pause, or wonder? What moments belong to words, and what can pictures be entrusted with? Exercises will include developing picture-book ideas, shaping text with page turns in mind, and exploring how rhyme, rhythm, and repetition bring a story to life.
Participants will develop their own picture-book manuscripts while thinking closely about how language, pacing, and voice work together on the page. This workshop is for writers interested in the unique possibilities of picture-book storytelling, and how stories for young readers are built—line by line, page by page.
About Mahnoor
Mahnoor Azeem is an illustrator and writer based in Lahore. She holds an MFA in Illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar. She teaches illustration and design at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), is the lead illustrator for South Asian Avant-Garde (SAAG), and illustrates children’s books. Her creative practice explores themes of memory, identity, and place, working primarily digitally while also experimenting with ceramics, printmaking, and fabric-based projects.
