Visits & Workshops
We love visiting schools and leading writing and/or illustrating workshops. We present together or separately, depending on our schedules and your budget.
If you’d like to discuss school visit fees and availability, please contact klisevisit@centurytel.net.
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ELEMENTARY SCHOOL VISITS
Writing is a messy process. It can be frustrating, too, unless someone shows you how professional writers organize their ideas to form cohesive and compelling narratives. We don’t try to get it right in the first draft. We don’t rely on adjectives and details to tell our stories. Writers are like architects. We build our stories carefully, sentence by sentence, so they can stand on their own and evoke an emotional response in the reader.
When we visit elementary schools, we usually do three or four programs.
* a 35-minute session with the K-2 crowd where we talk about how we started creating books as kids and how anyone can write a book if he or she knows the secret recipe for storytelling.
*a 50-minute session with students in grades 3-5 in which we discuss the creative process. We like to share with young authors our early failures and how we discovered (the hard way) what makes a good story, how important it is to send a character on an interesting journey, the critical OH NO moment in any good story, and why writing is really rewriting.
*One or two 50-minute writing or illustrating workshop(s) for 30 or fewer students in grades three and above who use the tips and tricks we shared with them during the large-group session to start their own bestselling books or jacket covers.
But we're flexible. We're always happy to custom design a visit to match your students' interests and needs.
WRITING WORKSHOPS FOR OLDER STUDENTS
For older students in grades 6 through 12, Kate leads non-fiction workshops where she shows students how to write a classic People magazine-style story. Kate spent fifteen years working as a correspondent for People magazine. She covered everything from country music to celebrity scandals. Kate has found that teaching students how to write a magazine story helps them write stronger and better organized essays to use in class or for their college applications.
And speaking of those college applications, this summer Kate will offer a series of workshops for high school students struggling with those college application essays. If you're interested, you can find out more here.
ART CAMP, ANYONE?
Sarah offers several week-long art camps in the summer for young artists in San Francisco's Bay Area. To learn more about upcoming art camps or to inquire about bringing Sarah's art camp to your school or library for a day or a week, contact us here.
