Tuesday 23 October 2012

My first school visit – as an author!

School visits are something I’m already quite used to – I’m often asked by teacher friends of mine to take in my collection of rocks and fossils during Science Week, or when they are studying Rocks, or planning a school fossil hunting expedition.

But the other week, when I was telling one of these friends about my book deal, he asked me to come in and run a writers workshop with the kids.

Now this was something really rather different from handing around a load of ammonites, so I picked the brains of authors I know who do such workshops on a regular basis, and I came to the conclusion that the best way for me to do something a bit different, was to tie in my workshop with one of the themes in my book.

So that’s what I did, and we blasted into space. I enjoyed it! I hope they did too!

10 comments:

  1. Wow! I know it's part of being a writer, but the idea of going into schools and talking about your book gives me the chills! (Luckily)I'm a long way off that point - but I'm full of admiration for you!

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    1. I think it's probably easier than talking to adults - kids are far more receptive and have so few preconceptions :-)

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  2. You're a brave woman, Kate! Great to hear about your school visits promoting both science and writing to children though, keep it up! ( It gets you some early fans of your work too! )

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    1. Science and writing - my two main passions :-)

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  3. Excellent! Terrifying, but excellent!

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  4. Congrats! Sounds like a good time was had by all.

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    1. Certainly by me. Here's hoping I get to do more of these!

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  5. Linked here from Jody Hedlund's blog.

    This is a creative idea for school presentations. I've done alot of them (including science, which is not my field by a long shot), but I've never done one on my book (essays on Proverbs). Would you consider a blog post on how you combined a theme and a chapter of your book for a workshop? I think that would be interesting and helpful.

    WB

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    1. It's really quite straightforward - pick a theme from you book and then throw it open to the kids and run with it from there! Have a few turning points along the way if you need to get things back on track - but the kid will surprise you!

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