A Note from Carol About
School and Library Visits
I enjoy giving presentations about writing and publishing at schools,
libraries, and conferences. Over the years, I've covered a wide range of
topics.
Most often, I'm asked to give a general presentation that answers the
questions I'm asked most often: Where do you get your ideas? How many times
do you revise? How did you get your start as a writer? This session, called
Making a Living Telling Secrets and Lies, emphasizes how I use bits and
pieces from my life, but change them to suit the stories I'm telling.
Teachers and librarians often ask for writing workshops. In these
sessions, limited to a maximum of 30 students, we focus on a key component of
writing: the opening hook, voice, characterization, sensory detail, or
metaphor/simile. The sessions begin with many examples, taken from the best
of literature, that model these important elements. We discuss what choices
the author made to create effective lines or scenes. Then students have the
opportunity to use what they've learned to compose their own pieces of
writing.
The workshop's message is this: reading great books can teach us how to
be good writers. If we look closely--if we read the way writers read--we can
learn how effective writing is created.
Carol
