Write to Breathe. Write to Remember. Write to Be Seen.
Our writing workshops are designed for people at every stage of their writing life, from caregivers who have never written a word, to seniors with a lifetime of stories, to corporate teams building connection through shared narratives. Our facilitators create a space where every voice is welcome.
Write to Breathe. A Space That Is Entirely Yours.
Caregiving leaves little room for yourself. Write to Breathe is a restorative creative writing break designed specifically for active caregivers. You write about anything that moves you: memories, dreams, family stories, imagined futures. Not caregiving, unless you choose it. Just your voice, on the page, in a space that is entirely yours.
Our general adult workshops welcome anyone who wants to write regardless of experience. Fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, poetry, family history. No experience required.
In person or virtually from home
No writing experience required
90-minute sessions, offered weekly or as intensive day workshops
Give Your Students a Voice.
Our youth creative writing workshops are curriculum-aligned and designed to meet Ontario Language expectations in Writing for a Purpose and Oral Communication across Grades 3 through 12. Fiction, poetry, personal narrative, and storytelling. We celebrate every student's voice, regardless of skill level.
One-off workshop session: 60 to 90 minutes
Multi-week program: 4 to 8 weeks
Author-in-residence: ongoing or semester-based
Literary arts festival programming
Grades 3 through 12, including ESL and ELL learners
Give Your Residents the Gift of Being Heard.
The Memoirs and Memories program is our signature storytelling experience for seniors and caregivers. Delivered in senior care settings in person or virtually. For many participants, this is the first time anyone has asked them to tell their whole story. The results are transformative.
Discover Stream (6 weeks):
Group storytelling, guided memory prompts, reflective sharing. Unlimited participants. Ideal for activity programming, social connection, and resident engagement.
Create Stream (12 weeks):
Up to 12 participants. Each participant receives a professionally bound memoir at the close of the program. A legacy artefact. A gift to their family. A reason to show up every week.
The Alzheimer Society of Canada recommends guided reminiscence as a meaningful non-pharmacological support for people living with dementia and their caregivers.
Hospice and palliative care organizations
Long-term care homes
Senior residences and retirement communities
Cultural and faith-based senior organizations
Community senior centres
Partnership pricing available for non-profits and hospice organizations. Letters of support for grant applications available on request.
Do you want the full picture?
View our complete information writing workshop information package
Booking Form
Your Team Has a Story. Let's Help Them Tell It.
Storytelling is not a soft skill. It is a strategic one. Writing workshops build psychological safety, sharpen communication, strengthen team cohesion, and generate the kind of authentic organisational narrative that no brand consultant can manufacture.
For Corporations:
Executive memoir and legacy writing sessions
Team storytelling and narrative workshops
Corporate professional development writing days
Corporate retreat writing experiences
Custom facilitation for leadership teams
For Non-Profits:
Our writing programs are designed to be delivered within your existing programming model, with partnership pricing that reflects the reality of non-profit budgets. Outcomes include: increased participant engagement, meaningful legacy artefacts (bound memoirs, published stories), documented community impact for grant reporting, and alignment with funder priorities around mental health, aging, and cultural programming.
We work with hospice and palliative care organisations, long-term care homes, community health centres, settlement and newcomer support organisations, cultural organisations, caregiver support networks, and libraries.
WRITING WORKSHOP
Everybody has something to say.
Writing is the cheapest tool we have for working out what we actually think. It costs a pen and an hour. It needs no equipment and no talent. And it works just as well on a nine year old as it does on a room full of adults who have not written anything but email in fifteen years.
Zou Zou Media House runs facilitated writing workshops for four very different rooms. The belief behind them is the same. The method in each one is not.
For children aged 6 to 12, the win is confidence. Most reluctant writers are not short of ideas. They are afraid of getting the spelling wrong. We take that off the table in the first ten minutes, and they leave with a finished piece every session.
For teens aged 13 to 19, the win is voice. Real revision skills that transfer into every essay they write, a portfolio piece they can use for applications, and exposure to writers who look like them and are alive and working now.
For nonprofits, the win is programming you did not have to build. We come in as your community partner, deliver to the people you serve, and leave you with something to show your funders.
For workplace teams, the win is an hour people actually attend. No preparation, no disclosure, no homework. Colleagues write, share only if they want to, and come out hearing each other differently.
Book a single session, a six session block or a twelve session program. Every session runs 60 or 90 minutes, in person or virtually, with all prompts and materials supplied.
Ages 6 to 12 | Ages 13 to 19 | Nonprofits | Workplace teams
One session, six, or twelve.
How the programs are sold
OPTION 1
Single session
One workshop, complete in itself. Good for a PA day, a staff wellness hour, a community event or a first look before you commit to more.
60 OR 90 MINUTES
IN PERSON OR VIRTUAL
MATERIALS SUPPLIED
OPTION 2 MOST BOOKED
Six session block
Weekly or biweekly. Long enough for people to stop performing and start writing honestly, and for a group to become a group.
6 SESSIONS
60 OR 90 MINUTES EACH
ENDS WITH A SHARING SESSION
OPTION 3
Twelve session program
A full term. Participants move from prompts to finished, edited pieces. This is the version that ends in a published anthology.
6 SESSIONS
60 OR 90 MINUTES EACH
ENDS WITH A SHARING SESSION
THE SHAPE OF A SESSION
The spine is the same. What sits on it changes completely.
Open
A short warm up that gets pens moving before anyone has time to decide they are not a writer.
Model
A piece read aloud by the facilitator. Participants see how it was built before they are asked to build one.
Write
The main block. Prompts are supplied, timed and scaffolded so nobody stares at a blank page.
Share
Always optional. Nobody reads aloud unless they choose to, in every group we run.
Close
Something to take home, and something to look forward to next time.
AGE 6 TO 12
Young Authors
At this age the enemy is not a lack of ideas. It is the belief that writing means neat handwriting, correct spelling and getting it right the first time. We take that off the table in the first ten minutes.
Children write from a story they have just heard, usually from The Amazing Zoe series, read aloud by the author who wrote it. Meeting a real writer changes what they think a writer is.
60 OR 90 MINUTES
SINGLE, 6 OR 12 SESSIONS
SCHOOLS, LIBRARIES, CAMPS
AND AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
How we teach it
Draw first, write second. Younger writers plan in pictures, which removes the blank page entirely.
Mentor text, then permission. We read a chapter, then ask them to write the next one, or the same scene from another character's side.
Comic strip panels. Six boxes turn a story into a structure a child can hold in their head.
No erasers. Spelling and neatness are not marked. Crossing out is encouraged, because real drafts look messy.
Scribing on request. Emerging writers and English language learners can dictate while we write, so nobody is left out of the activity.
A read around, never a performance. Sharing is invited, never required, and the group learns to respond with what they liked rather than what was wrong.
How we teach it
A finished piece of writing, every single session.
Confidence to start, which is the skill most reluctant writers are actually missing.
Comprehension work that sticks, because they retell and extend the story rather than answer questions about it.
Oral language practice through discussion, prediction and reading their own words out loud.
The idea that a person like them can write a book, held by a child who just met one.
On the twelve session program, a class anthology with every child's name in it.
AGE 13 TO 19
Speak Loud, Write Proud
Teenagers know when they are being talked down to. This one is run as a genuine workshop, the way an adult writing group runs, because that is what earns the room.
The subject is voice. Who gets to tell a story, whose stories get published, and what happens when you write the thing you have been avoiding.
60 OR 90 MINUTES
SINGLE, 6 OR 12 SESSIONS
SECONDARY SCHOOLS, YOUTH
PROGRAMS, LIBRARIES AND
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
How we teach it
Contemporary mentor texts. Spoken word, song lyrics, personal essay and short fiction, weighted toward Black and Caribbean Canadian writers they have probably never been assigned.
Timed free writes. Ten minutes, no stopping, no editing. It gets past the internal censor faster than anything else.
Form as a way in. Spoken word, flash fiction, letters, and social media as a legitimate written form rather than a punchline.
A real revision pass. Most students have never revised anything. We show them what a second draft actually does.
Structured peer feedback. Clear rules, so critique stays useful and nobody gets torn apart.
An open mic close. The final session is a showcase for whoever wants the microphone, with an audience invited.
What they walk away with
A portfolio piece they can use for scholarship, post-secondary or arts program applications.
Real revision skills, which transfer straight into every essay they write.
Public speaking practice in a room that is on their side.
Exposure to writers who look like them and are alive and working now.
Support for secondary English expectations in writing, media studies and oral communication, and a credible activity for youth programs outside school.
On the twelve session program, a published anthology and a launch event.
Nonprofits and community organizations
Bring Us In as a Community Partner
Most community organizations know exactly what their people need. What they do not have is a spare staff member to build a creative program, run it for twelve weeks and produce something at the end of it.
That is what we are for. We come in as your programming partner, deliver directly to the community you serve, and hand back something you can put in front of a funder, a board or a room full of families.
60 OR 90 MINUTES
SINGLE, 6 OR 12 SESSIONS
SETTLEMENT AND NEWCOMER
SERVICES, YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS,
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRES,
LIBRARIES AND FAITH GROUPS
How we partner
We build to your deliverable. Tell us what the grant promised, the number of participants, the sessions and the output, and we design backwards from it.
Mixed rooms are the default. Community programs rarely stream by age or ability, so every session is built to work with a fourteen year old and a sixty year old at the same table.
Plain language, every time. Prompts are written for newcomers and English language learners, and scribing is always available, so literacy level never decides who gets to participate.
Each session stands alone. Attendance in community programming is uneven and that is normal. Nobody is behind for missing week three.
Your staff co-facilitate if you want them to. They learn the structure by running it beside us, so some capacity stays in your organization after we leave.
It ends with something visible. A zine, a wall display, a community showcase or a professionally published anthology, depending on the length you book.
What your organization gets
A complete program without adding a single hour to your staff's workload.
Reportable numbers and a tangible output for funders, boards and annual reports.
A culminating event that gives your community and your donors something to actually see.
Culturally responsive facilitation, led by a published Black Canadian author, in rooms where that representation matters.
Attendance that holds, because participants come back for a program they enjoy.
A partner who can be named in grant applications, community benefit agreements and corporate sponsorship proposals.
Funding it
We are used to being written into applications before the money exists. Send us your draft budget and timeline and we will supply a quote, a program description and a facilitator biography you can attach.
What we need from you
A room, tables, and someone from your team in the space with the group. We bring the prompts, the materials, the facilitator and, on the twelve session program, the finished publication.
Workplace Team
The Creative Writing Power Hour
One hour, at lunch, with no preparation and no homework. Colleagues write short pieces from supplied prompts and, if they choose, read them out.
The reason it works is the reason people are nervous about it. Something honest comes out, and the team hears each other differently afterwards. But nobody is ever asked to disclose anything about themselves, and nothing leaves the room.
60 OR 90 MINUTES
SINGLE, 6 OR 12 SESSIONS
LUNCH HOUR OR LATE AFTERNOON
GROUPS OF 8 TO 30
How we facilitate it
Constraint over inspiration. Six word stories and hundred word pieces. A tight box is far easier than an open one for people who think they cannot write.
Objects and images, not feelings. Prompts start with a thing, so people arrive at something meaningful sideways instead of being asked how they are doing.
Write in another voice. Participants write as a customer, a stranger, a version of themselves at nineteen. The distance is what makes it safe.
A collaborative chain. One story passed around the table, each person adding a line. It gets a room laughing within five minutes.
Reading is invited, never expected. The facilitator reads anonymously for anyone who wants their piece heard without standing up.
Ends on the hour. Always. The session respects the calendar it was booked into.
What the organization gets
A wellness offering people actually attend, unlike most of them.
Psychological safety built through practice rather than a policy document.
Colleagues who know something about each other that a team lunch would never surface.
Creative thinking practice that transfers into how people write and pitch at work.
An hour away from screens that costs nothing in preparation from your team.
A strong fit for employee resource groups, leadership offsites, heritage months and milestone moments.
Also from us
Writing for caregivers and older adults.
We run two further writing programs on a separate page. Writing Through It is built for family caregivers and the staff who do this work professionally. Memoirs and Memories is legacy writing for older adults that ends in a professionally published anthology.
BOOKING
Tell us who is in the room.
Send us the group, the ages, roughly how many people, and whether you are thinking about a single session, six or twelve. We will reply within one business day with a recommended format, a sample session outline and a quote.