Tag: virtual visits

St. Martin Ukrainian Bilingual School

It was an interesting experience, speaking with St. Martin students from Edmonton AB this afternoon. We always log in on the virtual visit fifteen minutes or so early to ensure everything is working, and it was. But Microsoft Teams gods were not with us, because once the students settled in, the screens for both classrooms went blank and no matter what Ms Pohoreski or Ms Alexandruk did, that’s how the screens remained. So I presented to two blank screens. When students asked questions, their voices were crisp and clear and their questions were well-considered. I made eye contact with the web-cam and pretended it was a student. I was grateful to get this pic to see all the lovely students I was talking to! Many thanks to HREC ED for the funding!

CUCS lecture Winterkill

It was a lively and informed discussion with a great group of students, alumni, scholars and readers, touching on the research I did in order to write this book and the reasons for including uncomfortably historically accurate Canadian characters. We also discussed the tendency in Holodomor literature to portray people as all good or all bad and why I went out of my way not to do that, and also what else I consciously avoided.

Visiting with St. Sofia students; thank you HREC ED

Visiting with St. Sofia Byzantine Catholic students feels like coming home. No I was never a student at St. Sofia, but I’ve visited so often, virtually and in person, and their students and staff are so welcoming. This year, with the heartbreaking war in Ukraine, there are many more students. And speaking about Winterkill and the Holodomor with kids who have fled war as they sit among the kind and welcoming people of St. Sofia is a poignant experience.

Here are some pics.

Hickson Central PS and Winterkill

Quoting Mrs. Van Wyk from her Instagram page: Our students had the privilege again today of meeting with the amazing Marsha Skrypuch to talk about her newest book, Winterkill. There are always so many take-aways from these meets; including perseverance, critical thinking, and the need to tell the stories of those who have been intentionally silenced. 4 million Ukrainians were forever silenced during the Holodomor. 4 million. The past informs the present. Think critically. Thank you Marsha.

HREC ED funded visit to Hallsville Elementary

What a lovely visit with Hallsville Intermediate School 5th grade students! Carli Procter did such good organizing and it was nice to see former librarian extraordinaire Melanie Dulaney as well!
This virtual visit was funded through a grant with HREC – Education Holodomor Research and Education Consortium – HREC for book talks on my newest novel, Winterkill, which is set during the Holodomor. Thank you for the visit, and HREC, thank you for funding 30 of these visits! (one down, twenty-nine to go!)

Meeting with students in Georgia, Michigan and Montana …

It was a fun couple of days presenting to all of the 5th grade students from Riverside Elementary in Evans GA over the course of two sessions, and then catching up with two schools who had been scheduled for quick drop-ins for World Read-Aloud Day but who got ice-stormed out.

It was a small but mighty group in St. Louis MO made up of avid readers who asked GREAT questions. Their teacher emailed later to let me know that one of her students left the meeting completely in AWE and said “my year has been made!” Isn’t that the kind of feedback that melts an author’s heart?

During one of the sessions with Riverside, a student who is writing a big fat fantasy novel with a friend came up to the screen and we had a GREAT discussion about what to do when you write yourself into a corner. At St. Pat’s in MI, we had a great conversation about how those things that challenge us also become our gifts.

I miss seeing readers in person, so it’s great to meet with kids through the ether this way.