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| Padma Venkatraman |
Padma Venkatraman is the author of BORN BEHIND BARS, THE BRIDGE HOME, A TIME TO DANCE, ISLAND'S END and CLIMBING THE STAIRS, which have sold over 1/4 million copies and secured over 20 starred reviews. She is the winner of a WNDB Walter Award, SCBWI Golden Kite, NE-SCBWI Crystal Kite, 3 South Asia Book Awards, 2 Paterson Prizes, 2 Julia Ward Howe Awards etc. Her books have received several other honors (ALA notable, Malka Penn, Prix du Libraries, Litterado Prize, Sakura Medal) and been on numerous state award lists. When Padma isn't writing, she's presenting keynotes, conducting writing workshops, or speaking with young people in schools. Padma immigrated on her own at 19 and later pursued a doctorate in oceanography. Her love for our planet inspired her latest novel: SAFE HARBOR (7-11y).
Padma opens the creative lab with exercises, telling us about three techniques we can use to help readers and our characters connect:
Embody our character
Act, move like they would
Mind-melt with our character
Think like they would
Feel our character's Heart
Speak like they would
Asking us to close our eyes for privacy, Padma suggests we try to embody one of our characters in a moment of joy. How would they sit? What would they do?
Another exercise has us remember a favorite scene from a book, and then asks us to think about why we love it so. Most of us saw that the why resonated with something in our own lives. (It certainly did for me!)
The exercises keep coming, set up with examples from other authors and from Padma's work, too.
Two more highlights of what Padma shared:
"It is in the space between the words that we meet our characters."
and
"You control time in your novel... You decide how long each scene is."
This creative lab is off and running!
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