Epic Workshop Videos
Finally, you can enjoy Jenny L. Cote's filmed workshops with your school, homeschool or group! You can stream the videos for three months from the Jenny L. Cote Epic Workshops On Demand Vimeo Page.
Opening with the popular “Black Coat Story,” Jenny humorously illustrates a really lame story, followed by a really colorful story. She explains how creative writing is like painting a picture in your mind and writing what you see. Animating animal figurines, Jenny brings colorful characters to life, and describes the importance and, yes, FUN of doing research! Learn how to weave in surprises, action, tension and end well.
Epic Workshop #2: DREAM (coming)
“Pharaoh Cote” makes a grand costumed entrance and engages the students on the subject of dreams. She’ll be joined by costumed Joseph volunteers who act out the different stages in the life of Joseph for a vibrant discussion on the evolving arc of a character, complete with dynamite dialogue, reality checks for writing historical fiction, and how to use artistic license.
Peanuts’ Linus opens the workshop with his video monologue about the Christmas story. Although this workshop’s theme centers on Christmas, it is applicable for any writing season. Many “wow moments” come from understanding the meaning of words and the impact they have on stories. Learn how incredible secrets are revealed from solid research, setting the state for imaginative writing to soar. Unpack two sharp tools that Jenny uses for organizing the writing process.
Go with Jenny back in time to London to sit in Handel's composing room, and to Israel and Rome to sit in the chairs of those who brought the story of Messiah into being. The focus of this workshop will help students with assignments on writing about characters at any point in history. Learn how to choose the perfect character to write about, how to trace their history through FUN research, discover the actionable events to relay in an exciting way, inspire your readers by retelling the character's story, organize your writing before you write a word, and stretch your writing beyond what you thought you could achieve.
Jenny will discuss her process to develop a book from beginning to end, from writing to publishing. She uses the acrostic as well as metaphor of following a road to reach the destination. Route (mapping out a story, developing an outline from point A to Point B), Obstacles (writer’s block, research, distractions and dead ends), Attractions (fun things to see along the road for the writer as well as the reader) and Destination (editing, illustrations, typesetting, advance readers, publishing, and distribution for a new book).
“GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME ANOTHER PLOT LINE!” will cover Jenny’s research for her novel on Patrick Henry: The Voice, the Revolution, and the Key Go behind the scenes of Patrick Henry’s famous speech that rallied a nation to independence, and discover how it actually all started in Rome. Jenny will share how she is weaving together one fun plot line for this famous speech across two novels, and a second plot line across seven novels.
Playing on one of Patrick Henry’s impassioned quotes, “IF THIS BE FICTION, MAKE THE MOST OF IT!” will cover how to write historical fiction, including choosing a character, doing the crucial research (and having fun with it!), organizing the story, and then writing it to keep your reader eagerly turning the pages.
Epic Workshop #10: HISTORY
Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Jenny L. Cote less-famously said, “The next generation needs to learn the good, the bad and the ugly of history in order to repeat the good, avoid the ugly and never repeat the bad.” For non-history geeks, history can get, well, old. But history is anything but old when you know how to dive in and pull out the nuggets that make it relate to YOUR story. Jenny shares her research behind her eighth novel, The Declaration, the Sword, and the Spy (2020), and how she makes the American Revolution come alive for readers of all ages. She will highlight the historical locations featured in the book: Boston, Lexington & Concord, Paris, Bunker Hill, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Fort Ticonderoga. Fall in love with history, so that history will never get old.
Testimonials from Dunwoody Christian School Teacher and Students
