Students imagine a hungry monster living under their couch and write about their first epic encounter with it as a narrative poem. Students will be guided through key aspects of the form and the use of various poetic devices including...

Are your students finding it hard to write meaningful dialogue in their stories? In this fun and interactive workshop students will meet and help a robot - the SF Chatbot 2000 (Chatty) - have better conversations. They'll focus on three techniques...

First Nations people have tens of thousands of years of knowledge sharing the unique shapes and stories of the stars visible from this hemisphere. In this workshop series, students will explore the Star Stories of the Dreaming and consider the...

In this workshop students will explore the artworks of artists including Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, using their quirky and colourful pieces to inspire poetry. Students will reimagine the stories and characters behind the works, expanding their vocabulary to bring art to...

Through different workshops week to week, all themed around food, students will be introduced to different literary devices, work with model texts and scaffolds, and bring their own tastes and passions to the table to write a collection of poetry...

In this workshop Story Factory guides students through an exploration of the creative techniques used by cartoonists to anthropomorphise objects and animals. Students will bring objects from their daily lives to life, creating unique characters, imagining daily activities and drafting...

Looking to share contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices with your students? Each week students will explore a track by Indigenous artists and use it as inspiration for their own lyric writing. They will learn about Indigenous cultures and...

Ever heard of Cheese Rolling in Coopers Hill, or Worm Charming in Willaston, or the Wife Carrying Race in Dorking? In this program students act as news reporters, sent to investigate the weird traditions of small towns with odd histories...

Experimenting with style? Considering the audience? Finding it all a little dry? This workshop gives students a chance to practise these specific English skills while engaging in a fun and interactive experience, drawing from two clashing formats - horror movies...

Have you ever had a nightmare you can't quite explain? In this workshop students explore prose poetry and surrealism as they prepare to write their own short horror narrative based on an alien invasion. They learn strategies for ideating and...

Have you ever judged a book by its cover? Ever felt that someone judged you? This workshop gives students an opportunity to look beyond our everyday appearances and imagine other people's experiences. Students will develop a portfolio of writing including...

In this short series students will have the opportunity to both rant and celebrate! Students will learn about the form, language features and history of the ode as well as some useful strategies for idea generating, using mentor texts and...

In this workshop series students are introduced to the ideas of protest of art, with specific reference to work of Blak Douglas. Students will complete writing in various text types, responding to elements in the work of Blak Douglas and...

So, as you may or may have not noticed, InstaPoetry is pretty big. These workshops introduce students to the genre, exploring the inventive ways the multimodal nature of Instagram is being used by young poets. Students will be led through...

Memory River is a project which will combine Indigenous history, stories and art with the voices of young people from Western Sydney. The project will take place at The Parramatta Female Factory Institutions Precinct, a location with a long and...

During Term 3 and 4, 2022, students from James Cook Boys Technology High School, Birrong Girls High School and Doonside Technology High School completed Story Factory's Sunset in my Heart program. In this workshop series students created personal essays and fragments that explored...

Art Write Light is a free creative writing project curated by Story Factory, that connects Australian artists with young people in an explosion of creativity over three colourful years. This project creates opportunities for students to creatively respond to the...

CineVerse is a Story Factory Big Project spanning four high schools in Western Sydney, five emerging film-makers, over 80 poems and up to 20 short films. Cinematic in both scope and vision, CineVerse allows teenagers from widespread communities to use the language...

Marvellous Birds is a creative writing and storytelling project for Years 5 and 6 students. It investigated the feathered beauty of some truly incredible birds. Through carefully scaffolded creative writing activities, students explored themes such as community, camaraderie, displacement, environmental change, migration...

In this Story Factory partnership with the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (NASCA) and the State Library of NSW, students are immersed in a world of books and history. In site visits to the Library, students will create a collection...

Story Factory 10th Anniversary Writing Prize ‘Voices in the Wind’ Supported by UBS Entries open 1 April - Close 31st May

A User’s Guide to a Pandemic was an idea that started during the national lockdown in 2020. The idea was simple – that young people needed to write about this. Four writing centres for young people across the country joined together...

The Parramatta Female Factory is an important site in the colourful history of colonial New South Wales. Since 1821 it’s been an orphanage, prison, asylum, medical facility and school. In Art and the Institution, Story Factory has partnered with the...

Writers Teaching Teachers Writing is a special program that allows authors and educators to interact in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to students. The program has two parts, student workshops running over six-seven hours, and teacher workshops running...

In a Flash is a Story Factory project, inviting you, (yes you!) to become a published author. All you have to do is follow the writing challenge instructions and submit your writing!

For thousands of years people have known about the beneficial effects of reading and writing: bibliotherapy. But what about Instagram therapy? And what happens when you combine the two? In a Story Factory Big Project for 2019-20 teenagers are writing...

We’re Writing to Say... is a Story Factory project that aimed to creatively document the lived experience of young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the shared experience of a truly unprecedented year, the project connected young people with...

Who hasn’t wished magic was real? This program invites participants to imagine the fantastical realms of magic; students will develop spells, incantations, potions, and more. Expect to write unusual incantatory verse, scaffolded text types such as poems and recipes...

This workshop gives students the opportunity to imagine and write a narrative exploring the dream first job…working at an Amusement Park! Each week students write a new chapter based on writing prompts which focus on different narrative or literacy...

Welcome to the world of dinosaurs! Students will explore similarities and differences in the dinosaur kingdom, and the wants and needs of creatures. This program allows students to explore the importance of interpersonal relationships, use language to describe emotions and...

This program will use a video game structure to engage students and scaffold their creation of a narrative. Beginning from the idea that students have become trapped in a video game world, students will create characters, the world of the...

From a flower that resembles a brain to a three-metre-tall plant that smells of bin juice, sometimes nature is stranger than any fiction. In this workshop series, students will dive into the world of plants and explore a range of...

We’ve been wondering how we’d survive if a robot invasion occurred. No really, we have! In this workshop students will consider the consequences of a robot invasion in their school and town. Students will create a collection of...

What would it be like to be The Invisible Man on his first day of Year 7? How does Medusa order coffee without turning the barista to stone? In this workshop series students will reimagine and retell the stories of villains...

Students consider the impact of climate change and imagine what their survival skills will be like come climate disaster. They will explore this through the lens of speculative fiction, a sub-genre of sci-fi that investigates alternative futures and realities. During...

In this fast-paced workshop, students will explore the world of protest poetry, exploring various examples both performances and written. Working individually and in small groups, students will develop ideas for their poems, explore language features, line breaks, and a variety...

At Story Factory we’ve wrestled (in a totally gentle and bird-friendly way of course) birds and poetry into the mechanised, robotic 21st century! In this workshop students will begin by creating their own fantastical Robot Bird, a creature that...

Dymocks Tutoring has a writing competition, and the prizes are between $500-$5000 dollars! In this workshop, we’ve partnered with Dymocks to deliver a writing class to help you create a piece of writing you can send to the Dymocks...

Anyone can learn how to write, and write well. Whether you're an intermediate storyteller who already writes (and reads!) alot, or if you're a total beginner and just starting out, you'll learn the foundations of how to be a great...

Everyone has a great story waiting inside of them! Story Factory wants to make yours into a book! We'll help you make all your amazing ideas into a story people can read and talk about and say "hey, this is...

Come along to our Just Add Ink program, where we will meet online every Monday to create stories through fun activities and writing games. Our supportive Storytellers guide you in becoming an even better writer. Every week we build on...

Join our Control Alt. Edit program, where we will meet online every Tuesday, to help enhance your writing skills through creative activities and sharing stories. Whether it’s poetry, scripts or short fiction, you will be supported by our Storytellers...

Join our This is Canon program, where we will meet online every Wednesday, to help enhance your writing skills through creative activities and sharing stories. Whether it’s poetry, scripts or short fiction, you will be supported by our Storytellers...

Come along to our Unreal Writers program, where we will meet online every Thursday to create stories through writing activities and stories. As our supportive Storytellers guide you in becoming an even better writer. Every week we build on your...

Year of the Novella; and Year of Poetry; are our open programs for High School aged young people who love to write and want to stretch themselves creatively. In weekly writing workshops in the course of a year, students commit...