One of the things I love most about being a children’s book author is doing writing workshops at local elementary and middle schools. I help students write a story together either about a dragon who is guarding her cave or about an alien who is standing in front of his spaceship. We focus on character point of view and writing using all five senses. Every student participates by adding one or two sentences to the story. No matter how many times I’ve done this, we’ve never told the same story twice, although for some reason a lot of the characters end up being named Bob. The stories are always super creative and usually ridiculously funny. You can read some of them here.
Workshop details:
- I live in Santa Clara County in Northern California and do workshops throughout the South Bay and up the Peninsula.
- 3rd through 6th grade seem to be the ideal ages for my workshops. I have done modified workshops for 2nd graders and I have visited 7th and 8th grade classrooms as well.
- I do one classroom at a time so that every child has the opportunity to contribute to the story.
- One hour or a little more than one hour works well. Forty-five minutes is doable but it’s almost impossible to give every child an opportunity to participate in that time.
- I’m happy to rotate through as many classrooms (for one grade level) as we can fit in a day. I’ve done as many as 4 sessions in one school day. It’s best if I only visit one grade level in any given year. If I visit the same grade level year after year, then most students will eventually participate in a workshop.
- I need a lot of white board space. We usually fill up at least two large white boards.
- As much as possible, I try to donate my time. I know how tight budgets are.
- I do provide a sign-up sheet to be sent home for children who might want to buy my books. Obviously, I don’t require that people purchase the books, but I get a lot of requests so it’s helpful to have a process in place.
NOTE: I also participate in Discovery Days at various schools where I talk about what it’s like to be an author.
E-mail me at kristiwrightauthor@gmail.com for more information about the workshops.