Get Your Author Out of the Library
I recently visited the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) at their National Convention in Columbus Ohio, which is a far hipper town than you think. For one thing, they have this car driving around downtown! Look closely and you’ll see that, yes, those are Babie doll legs sticking up from the top.
At the AASL, I regaled the librarians with advice gleaned from 10 years of coming to schools as a visiting author. Would you like to hear some of the gems?
1) Convey enthusiasm. Talk about your author visit as if it is going to be a blast, with everybody from students to principal to teachers to custodian. The excitement spreads out from you.
2) Share information. From early on, tell your staff, your teachers, and your students who will be coming, why you chose her, and why she’s cool.
3) Get the books. Buy them, borrow them, steal them if you have to, but make sure each kid reads at least one book.
4) Make your students into hosts. Rather than telling them, “We’re going to do something amazing for you,” tell them, “Something amazing is happening at our school and we need your help.” Recruit them to make displays, greet the author, guide her to the library, write an article about her for the school newsletter–anything that turns them into active participants.
5) Tell your author where to park. Please. I can’t be the only author in the world who finds the layout of schools and their associated parking lots bewildering.
More tips to come later….
Read MoreWriting Tips
I am putting together a list of writing tips to use with schools when I do author visits. Perhaps you’d like to hear them?
Sarah L. Thomson’s Eight Best Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
First drafts MUST be MESSY.
Leave space in a first draft (skip lines) so there is room to revise.
For a second draft—don’t try to write it better. Write it different.
Stuck for something to write about? Take a story or an idea everybody knows (Cinderella and her stepsisters? Witches on broomsticks?) and CHANGE it.
Want to be a writer? Do these two things. Read A LOT. And try to finish whatever you write. Getting to the end gets easier with practice.
Alliteration (using words with the same letter sounds) is fun.
Plot outlines can solve the dreaded “I’m stuck in the middle of the story and I can’t finish it” problem.
I’ve done twenty drafts of some books. Two or three should be no problem.
Read MoreTell Me Your Author Visit Stories
AASL National Conference
Dear Fellow Authors and Illustrators,
Later this fall, I am going to be speaking at the AAASL (American Association of Awesome School Librarians)–oops, I might have slipped an extra “A” in there. I’ll be telling the cool librarians how they can work with authors, illustrators, teachers, staff, students, and families to get the most out of an author or illustrator visit.
If you’re a veteran of school visits, you probably know that subtle but real feeling of excitement when you walk into a school that’s READY. Maybe there’s a cool display up on a wall; maybe a kid does a double-take and gasps, “Are you the author?” (or as it often comes out, “Are you the Arthur?”). Or maybe there’s just a feeling in the air, and you know it’s going to be a good visit. The kids will be excited and engaged; the teachers will be interested; each presentation will seem too short.
Do you have any stories about schools that have done a great job creating this kind of energy and excitement? What have librarians or teachers done to get their students to the point where they are revved up about what you have to share and ready to put it use in their own creative work? What, to you, makes a GREAT school visit different from a ho-hum one? Please share in the comment section, and let me know if it’s okay to use your story in my talk.
Thank you!
Read MoreDoing Something
A moment in the library at Ferguson, Missouri.
If you’re like me, you’ve been deeply sad and angry about the things that have been and are happening in Ferguson, and all the things in our country that we now refer to just by saying the name of a neighborhood. And you feel frustrated and helpless, too, and wish here was something you could do.
I can think of four things.
1) Take a deep breath and admit that racial bias is real, and that it hurts people daily.
2) If someone of color says that he or she has experienced racial bias, believe it. They are the experts. They know.
3) Try to read, write and publish more books that feature children of color. If we are going to see each other as real people, and not caricatures built of fear, we need to start young.
4) Donate some money to the Ferguson Library. This small library has stayed open when schools and other public services shut down. They are trying to buy “healing kits” for the kids in the community, to help them deal with the traumatic events all around them. If there is every a community that needs a safe, calm place where minds and hearts can meet (is there ever a community that doesn’t?), Ferguson is it.
More about the library here.
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly