I love school visits! Meeting my little readers is where the rubber meets the road for me as a writer. I tailor my presentations to second through fourth grades, but I can accommodate first and fifth graders as well.
Typical sessions include a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies my talk about:
●How I got the idea for the Maybelle books (What’s a nice middle-age lady doing writing about cockroaches and fleas?)
●How my grandmother and my little girl inspired me and gave me the courage to try to be what I’d always wanted to be
●The importance of reading to a writer (and to everyone else, for that matter)
●The journey of a newbie writer from first efforts through disappointment (Oh, the mailbox blues) and on to acceptance and publication, otherwise called revision, revision, revision
●The need for patience along every step of the way (There’s that mailbox again)
●How a story that started out on coffee stained three-by-five index cards became a real book
●How my illustrator brings the bugs in my imagination to life. And nobody screams
●The rewards of practice and perserverence
●A reading from my next book Maybelle at the Fair, time permitting.
I finish my sessions with 10 minutes or so of questions from the kids.
Teachers work amazingly hard and school days are packed with “must covers,” but I strongly urge that students be exposed to at least one of my books before I arrive. It’s lots more fun that way.
The Practicalities:
Kansas City area school visits are $500 a day. That includes four fourty-five minute presentations for groups of up to 200. Half days are $300 for two presentations.
Out-of-town visits are $750 a day plus expenses. To cut costs for individual schools I will split days if travel times between schools are reasonable.
I greatly appreciate payment on the day of my appearances.
I will need:
I’m honored to sign books, but my publisher’s contract prohibits me from selling them. Book sales will need to be handled through the school. Click here for a book order form: bookorderform4students.doc
