I love vis­it­ing schools across the coun­try and shar­ing my pas­sion for writ­ing, sto­ry­telling, his­to­ry, and research with stu­dents of all ages. I am also avail­able for con­fer­ences, fes­ti­vals, and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment events.I have sev­er­al pro­grams from which to choose, and you’re free to mix-and-match these depend­ing on needs and goals. I’m very flexible.

 

I am book­ing in-per­son school vis­its, con­fer­ences, fes­ti­vals, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment work­shops, and oth­er book-relat­ed events. 

 

Please reach out if you are inter­est­ed in host­ing me for a vir­tu­al pre­sen­ta­tion, work­shop, meet & greet, or cus­tomized session.

 

For more infor­ma­tion about my pre­sen­ta­tions, or to book a speak­ing engage­ment, please con­tact my book­ing agent, Lisa Nadel at Lon­ni Lane Marketing.

 

Large group pre­sen­ta­tions — Tai­lored to the age with which I’m speak­ing, the focus of these talks is the writ­ing process. With younger grades (preschool to 1st grade) the empha­sis is find­ing and telling sto­ries; with 2nd and 3rd grade the dis­cus­sion becomes more spe­cif­ic and touch­es on top­ics such as struc­ture and revi­sion; with old­er grades, too, struc­ture and orga­ni­za­tion are dis­cussed, but the con­ver­sa­tion also turns to research, the use of pri­ma­ry doc­u­ments and edi­to­r­i­al choic­es. All these talks are inter­ac­tive and visu­al (I use a Keynote slide pre­sen­ta­tion), use ele­ments of sto­ry­telling and are full of humor. The goal is to sup­port teacher instruc­tion, as well as fire up kids about the joys of writing.

 

Non­fic­tion Writ­ing Work­shops — Once again, these are tai­lored to the age with which I’m speak­ing and requires two, 45 minute vis­its with each class­room (or two class­rooms togeth­er). With my guid­ance, stu­dents use direct­ed inquiry to dis­cov­er true sto­ries and facts about a very nar­row and spe­cif­ic sub­ject. They then com­pose a three-part essay about that sub­ject that focus­es on nar­ra­tive sto­ry­telling and pre­cise use of lan­guage, as well as theme and read­er rel­e­vance. (I call this form of writ­ing “hook, hold, haunt”). This work­shop works best with 2nd grade and up.

 

Fic­tion Writ­ing Work­shops — Stu­dents learn the basic ele­ments of fic­tion­al sto­ries using what I call my “super secret splen­dif­er­ous for­mu­la.” Using these ele­ments we plan a sto­ry togeth­er con­sid­er­ing such things as the main char­ac­ters’ strengths and weak­ness­es, con­crete details of set­ting, and obsta­cles requir­ing unique solu­tions. Addi­tion­al­ly, we pon­der the pur­pose and impor­tance of our sto­ry. All this is done before the actu­al writ­ing, which is also done as a direct­ed activ­i­ty. These work­shops are best with small groups, and work well for preschool­ers as well as fifth graders since com­plex­i­ty is added depend­ing upon the age of the student.