White Pine 2024 Nominee.
White Raven Selection Winner
Dora Mavor Moore Award, Best New Play Nominee.
Second City Award For Outstanding Comedy Winner.
Publishing Triangle Nominee
Booking Rates: $250 for one session, $200 for any additional sessions. A travel fee of $0.50/km if outside Toronto. Virtual visit rates negotiable.
Curtis Campbell is a novelist and playwright based out of Toronto. His novels include Dragging Mason County and the upcoming Lying, Stealing, and Other Ways to Save the Planet.
Workshops and Presentations
Writing Character Voice
A workshop on writing in the first person, how to develop the voice of your character, how to begin developing your writing style, and how you can begin putting this on the page! We will write and share our work.
Dialogue
A practical workshop focussed on how dialogue works for both novels and plays, its use to convey character and plot, and how to develop dialogue consistent with the tone and style of the piece you are writing. We will write and share work for discussion.
Writing For Your Audience
A common hurdle for any writer, new or seasoned, is just getting their project started. But I’ve always found that a simple solution is to address the needs of your intended audience, and the needs of the form. Are you writing a book, a play, a presentation?
In this workshop we’ll discuss what your audience needs, and how those needs can get your writing off to the races.
Writing About Ourselves
A workshop based around writing about yourself! In memoir, journal, fiction and nonfiction. I believe that everyone is a writer. People often say that they have nothing to write about, but we all have the ability to write about ourselves. This workshop is about putting yourself on the page using memory, identity, geography, imagination and site-specific practices to discover that you’re a writer too.
Playwriting
I am a working playwright and have ten years of experience creating plays in both the independent and professional worlds. This workshop will explore the basics of playwriting and teach students about the process of scene creation by having them write one of their own.
LGBTQ+ Student Group Visit
A facilitated discussion with your school’s LGBTQ+ student group to talk activism and advocacy as a young person, contemporary issues facing queer Canadians, and how they can effect change in their own school.
Book Banning And You!
An informative presentation and facilitated discussion. Ontario student’s intellectual freedoms and human rights are becoming increasingly threatened by the rising wave of book bannings. Where does this come from, and how can they begin to combat this attack on their rights?
All Aboard The Allyship!
As anti-2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation continues to spread, we can all benefit from an open discussion about the rapidly evolving nature of homophobia and transphobia in the internet age. This presentation and discussion presents common sense approaches to being an effective ally to the 2SLGBTQIA+ members of your community.
Dragging Mason County
Discussion of the White Pine nominated novel, and the issues explored within. Discussion topics include LGBTQIA+ youth issues, friendship and chosen family, allyship, homophobia and transphobia, theatre and drag, social media, and gender expression. For any class or club who have read the book.
Talk To An Author and Playwright
An engaging Q+A about the literary and theatre industries with a particular interest in discussing how students can begin developing, or continue developing their own artistic practice.
These workshops can be performed in a single classroom, or with merged classrooms.
The ideal group for writing workshops would be smaller, but I can make larger groups work just as well if there are a few staff members present.
A microphone would be great to have if we are meeting in a gym or cafeteria.
Workshops will always change by school and group, so I’m happy to customize and adjust based on your needs.