Appearances for Adults

Are you a knowledge junkie? Can you explain concepts clearly, while making the mundane sound magical? Congratulations: you’re a nonfiction writer in the making!

In this workshop, we’ll explore the weird and wonderful world of children’s nonfiction. We’ll start by defining five categories of nonfiction, using recently-published books as examples. We’ll review the four age groups in children’s publishing, and practice targeting topics for each group. And we’ll compare three major streams of nonfiction publishing, so you can find your perfect fit. Bring your notebooks – and your questions!

When researching a writing project, I take notes on about ten percent of the source material I read. About ten percent of the info in my notes appears in the final book! This workshop explores the hidden 90 percent, beginning with an introduction to primary and secondary sources. Next, we’ll develop an efficient research strategy by determining which types of sources to use when. Finally, we’ll discuss ways to critically evaluate research into emotionally-loaded issues—like climate change—in the age of AI and “fake news.”

You’ll also have the chance to ask questions about any aspect of research, receiving expert advice for approaching challenges in your own work.

Secondary sources are a good place to start research, but primary sources are the gold standard. Facts that have never been published in children’s books will make your work shine. Two places to hunt for those dazzling nuggets? Peer-reviewed papers and the experts who write them.

In this workshop, I’ll teach you how to search for and acquire peer-reviewed papers—without paying $26 a pop! You’ll also learn the best way to read these articles: picking out key points without bogging down in detail. Next, we’ll cover strategies for identifying—and interviewing—experts whose insights aren’t found anywhere else.

You’ll also have the chance to ask questions about any aspect of research, receiving expert advice for approaching challenges in your own work.

I researched my first five children’s books entirely on paper, a process both physically painful and absurdly time-consuming! Since then, I’ve developed a streamlined, digital workflow that makes research, writing, and fact-checking infinitely more efficient… while significantly reducing errors.

In this session, I’ll demonstrate how to partner reference management software with the organizational features of Scrivener, creating a powerful system for tracking and managing information. I used this system to research and write The Boreal Forest (238 sources), Polar (340 sources), and my nonfiction work-in-progress (469 sources and counting).

Follow my system and you’ll never lose the source of a fact—or type your own bibliography—again.

Why do we forget some stories, while others stay with us for years? Be they fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, stories with staying power are the ones that make us feel. This workshop explores the connections between language and emotions, teaching writers how to manipulate their reader’s response. Writers will harness the emotional resonance of vivid words and figures of speech, making their readers laugh, cry, and remember their words forever.

This program can be adapted for elementary, middle, high school, or adult audiences. It’s available as a 60-minute session, or as a full-day workshop in which participants apply these techniques to a new piece of writing. 

Tell people you’re a writer, and they’ll probably ask “What’s your book about?” But before we can tell other people, we have to be able to tell ourselves. Knowing what our book, story, article, or report is really about lets us research efficiently, revise strategically, and avoid time-consuming tangents… producing a final draft that’s concise, cohesive, and effective. In this presentation, I’ll share the coolest animal facts that aren’t in The Boreal Forest, and explain exactly why I cut them. Then, we’ll walk through each draft of the book’s opening scene, exploring the step-by-step-decision-making process of revision.

Throughout the program, two-minute writing challenges give participants a chance to apply revision strategies to their own work. Designed to get writers excited about re-writing, this program can be adapted for elementary, middle, high school, or adult audiences.

Readers don’t care what happens next unless they care about who it’s happening to. As writers, how do we create characters that readers love… or love to hate?

This workshop reveals the tight connections between plot and character, and how those connections produce compelling stories. Using examples from the TV show Supernatural, we’ll explore backstory, inciting incident, and character arc. Participants will experiment with tools for crafting characters and practice matching characters to plots.

Few endings satisfy—or enrage! —as much as the narrative twist. To satisfy, a twist must trigger a flash reinterpretation of events, and the feeling that evidence for that interpretation was present all along.

In this workshop, we’ll deconstruct the twist ending in Leigh Bardugo’s short story “The Witch of Duva,” set in her bestselling Grishaverse. To set up her twist, Bardugo leverages speculative pattern completion, source attribution errors, and other elements of cursed thinking: human cognitive limitations that make us vulnerable to misdirection, even when authors “play fair” by planting all the necessary clues.

Spoiler Alert: Before attending this workshop, all participants must read “The Witch of Duva,” which is freely available online. Writers working on their own twist endings should also consider reading Dr. Vera Tobin’s Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot.

Nonfiction has more pathways to publication than any other type of writing for children. I’ve taken all of them, and in this workshop, I’ll introduce you to the obstacles and opportunities on every path.

We’ll begin by exploring the magazine market before turning our attention to book publishing. We’ll compare and contrast the two major streams of traditional publishing—trade and educational—so you can find the best fit for you.

I’ll also share my experiences self-publishing Fuzzy Forensics, winner of the 2015 Lane Anderson Award for best Canadian children’s science book.