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15 November 2025

Posted by Melissa Dehn

Junior & Young Writers Week 2: African Mythology

As usual,
we opened this week’s creative writing workshop by describing our week, this
time through weather metaphors. The weather has been quite changeable lately,
and everyone’s weeks seemed to have been as well, ranging from “finally sunny
because I got a haircut,” “cloudy but with a chance for a party,” and “a puddle
with no reflection because I don’t remember anything” to “a busy tornado.”

The junior
writers played an impressive game of Zip-Zap-Boing to warm up, and the young
writers did Buzzy Bees.

Afterwards,
both groups tackled the “alternate uses” creativity exercise and came up with a
variety of interesting objects, some of which definitely need to exist in real
life: a hat that can also hold your phone, a wall-hanging spider house, and a
ring that animals can portal through.

African
mythology was the theme for the week, focusing on animal-based fables and
origin stories, which seemed to really inspire everyone. After listening to the
tales of why the jackal has a long black
stripe on his back and how Anansi became
a spider, the writers were rich with ideas of their own.

Didn’t you
know?

  • Tree
    salamanders grew fins and turned into axolotls after being bitten by fish.
  • Turtle
    doves used to be regular pigeons, until they helped a magical turtle.
  • Squirrels
    are fast because they eat an abundance of nuts, including Malteser nuts.
  • Turtles
    have shells because a bunch of drunken teenagers once taped a large rock to a
    turtle’s back and it couldn’t get it off.
  • Dogs
    ended up with a tail because they won it from humans in a gamble –
    unfortunately, they lost their heads in the process.

And many
more unique, imaginative stories!


























While there
won’t be a workshop on the 22nd of November, at least everyone got to
exercise their brains plenty.


- Melissa

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