My in-person author presentations are $250 / day in the greater Southwest Virginia area (driving distance from Roanoke) and $300 plus expenses outside that area. (The latter is negotiable!) See below possible presentations. I am open to collaborating with teachers and librarians to present anything awesome having to do with writing, Appalachia, science fiction, STEM, or whatever.
Skype visits are free for the first half hour. ($50/hour after that.) I ask that all students have read at least one of my books. (That’s for Skype or chat only.) I typically read from the newest book and answer questions in Skype visits.
Presentation Topics:
Ghosts of Appalachian Folklore. In the Ghosts of Ordinary Objects series, the main character loves Appalachian folktales, including Jack Tales, Ashpet, and devil / spirit dog stories. In this 30-60 minute talk, I discuss a bit of the history of the region and its folktales, particularly the ones found in the books.
Mining your own Family History. The Ghosts series grew out of my own interest in family history. My mother’s family is from a small community in Southwest Virginia called McCoy. (Big Vein is based on it.) Until the 1950s, it was a coal mining ‘town’ along with many other places in the New River Valley. This talk (30-60 minutes) is about the history of this area (and the time period in which the book is set).
World Building 101. One of my favorite things to talk about, world building covers how to come up with the world of your story, whether it’s science fiction, fantasy, historical, or contemporary. This 60-90 minute workshop was designed for teens but could be adapted to any audience. Take a peek at the presentation: World Building 101.
How to Sell Your YA (or any) Novel. (Or, You’ve Finished the Novel, Now What?) This 30-60 minute talk is suitable for writer’s conferences and teen groups. I go over the basics of what you need to do once you’ve finished your first novel, including how to write a query letter. I can also cover short stories. Here’s a version of the presentation I gave for teens: Getting Published 101.
Where do Ideas Come from (and What do You do with Them)? This is designed to be 1-2 hour workshop for teens / tweens. (It could easily be adapted for adults.) We talk about how to generate ideas for stories, and then we do several exercises so that the students end up with several ideas for stories they might like to write. If it’s a 2-hour (or more) workshop, we then go over what makes a story and work on developing one of their ideas into one. Here’s a version of the presentation I gave for teens: Where Ideas Come From.
Taking Risks (in Writing) (Or, Learning to Fly on the Way Down). This is a talk I gave for the MFA program at Hollins University. I shared my story as a writer, centering around the idea of taking risks in both my career and the writing itself.
Scheduling:
Email me through my contact page.
How to prepare for an author visit:
Cynthia Letitch Smith has some great tips on how to host an author.
