a marathon of readings

Last Wednesday was a busy day, what with the giant Peel event, followed by the visit to a school in Don Mills immediately after. As a rule, I will only do one full day of school presentations in a week. Any more than that and it drains me. I broke the rule several times during May in order to accommodate as many school requests as I could.

I got up early on Thursday morning and did the three hour drive to Leamington. That afternoon, I did two back to back presentations at a Leamington high school. The first presentation was in the gym with about 400 students, and the second was in the library. Initially, the second presentation was to be for 25 or so students who were in the reading club, but as time passed, the numbers crept up. The day before, the teacher-librarian emailed to let me know that 50 kids would be there. I had wanted to do a bit of a writing workshop with the students, and although 16 is the ideal number for that, I felt I could still incorporate a writing exercise with 50 if they were seated around tables.

When I got there, it turned out that 100 students had signed up! This was an honour, seeing as it was voluntary on their part, however, it’s hard to do any sort of writing exercise with a group that big. And there was no way to accommodate that many student around tables. So the teacher-librarian had set up rows and put an aisle down the middle. Many of the students had been to the presentation in the gym, so this second presentation was entirely different. I concentrated on the writing and revision process, answering questions about their own writing and also answering questions about my books — every single student in attendance had read at least one of my novels and many had read all.

And I did do a bit of a writing exercise. I was delighted with what the students were able to create during the exercise. Several read them to the entire group and they were fantastic! Any one could have been the intriguing beginning of a great story! I was thrilled!

That evening, Margaret Snow, teacher-librarian extraordinaire, took me out for dinner. Another local teacher librarian joined us and it was a pleasant evening. Then I drove back to my B&B and was asleep before I knew it.

The next morning, I did two back to back sessions at Margaret’s school, Gore Hill. Margaret had prepared the students so well for my visit that they were all familiar with my books and they asked excellent questions. One of the groups had concentrated on Aram’s Choice, so as a treat, I read them the first chapter of Call Me Aram, which is the sequel to Aram’s Choice and will be coming out in the spring of 2008. This was the first time I have shared the story with a class and they were all wanting more.

Margaret had arranged for a catered lunch and also had a huge cake that was iced with a greeting to me. I ate a piece of it as I was driving to the next school — yum!

The second school of the day was a small one and again, the teacher-librarian had prepared the students well. In the session for the younger children, there were letters each had written as if they were Aram, writing to his grandmother. There was also a stack of letters written to me with lots of questions. I incorporated the answers to those questions into my talk and also shared with them the first chapter of Call Me Aram. The second group was grades 6,7 and 8 and they had read the first half of The Hunger. It was also an interesting group of students who asked good questions.

After that 4th session of the day, I packed up and skedaddled before the bell rang. I wanted to beat the school bus out of the parking lot.

It wasn’t until I got home that the exhaustion hit. It took the entire weekend and more to recuperate. I don’t know why I don’t keep to my own rules and stick to the one day a week of presentations.

Author: Marsha

I write historical fiction, mostly from the perspective of young people who are thrust in the midst of war. View all posts by Marsha