X for Poets: Children's Book Writing for Poets with Sarah Sassoon

November 15, 2026
12:00 p.m.–1:30 p.m. ET

Please note that this is one session of a three-part workshop series. If you would like to sign up for all three workshops at once (led by Lesléa Newman, Sarah Sassoon, and Richard Michelson, respectively), please click here. If you have already signed up for the three-part workshop as a whole, you do not need to sign up again.

The Power of Image in Picture Books: Writing Through Objects and Memory

In this generative workshop, we will explore how picture books begin—not with plot, but with image.

Guided by my picture book Shoham’s Bangle, which is inspired by my grandmother’s journey from Iraq, we will enter storytelling through objects that hold memory.

In children’s literature, a single image can carry an entire story. A bangle, a pot on the stove, a thread, a stone—these are not just details; they are emotional anchors. They allow young readers to feel before they fully understand.

Together, we will write into these objects. We will ask: what does this object remember? What story does it hold? How can it speak simply, yet carry something vast?

Through generative prompts, we will explore:

• How image drives story in picture books

• How to create emotional resonance through concrete detail

• How to write with clarity, simplicity, and depth for young readers

• How objects can hold themes of home, memory, displacement, and belonging

This workshop is an invitation to trust image—to let the smallest details open into meaningful stories for children.

Come with curiosity, and if you wish, bring an object that holds a story.

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Sarah Sassoon is an Australian-born Iraqi Jewish writer, poet, and educator. Her work explores Iraqi Jewish history, exile, resilience, and the 2,600-year-old culture of Babylonian Jews, with particular attention to Middle Eastern women’s experiences. She is the author of the award-winning picture books Shoham’s Bangle and This Is Not a Cholent, and co-author of The In-Between (Verlagshaus Berlin). Her poetry micro-chapbook This Is Why We Don’t Look Back won the Harbor Review Jewish Women’s Poetry Prize. Her collection, An Oud in the Orchestra (Keter Publishing), is forthcoming. Her novel-in-verse Baghdad Girl was shortlisted for the Wingate Award 2024.

** If this fee is a hardship, Yetzirah offers a pay-what-you-can option for workshop participation. No one will be turned away for lack of funds, but please contact Program Coordinator Kyra Lisse at klisse@yetzirahpoets.org if you would like a sliding-scale ticket. 

Yetzirah is a nonprofit organization, and any gift you make is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law.