tips for a school visit: Part One

On Thursday 11 June I traveled to Abingdon to visit two schools to talk about my book, A Million Tiny Missiles All At Once.

My first visit was with Year 10 and I was unsure how it would go. As someone who works in a secondary school, speaking to an entire Year 10 group can be daunting. They can be tricky because they are, in my experience, at peak apathy stage. However, I just decided to do what I normally try to do and I feel it worked well. It helped that they were an amazing group of students. My second visit was with a mix of Year 9 and 10 and again, I thought it could go either way but I feel it went really well and I loved the entire atmosphere.

What I think I’ll do is just provide a few tips for authors visiting with older year groups, at least, this is what I do and it seems to work. I’m not saying that if you don’t do this that you’ll have a bad visit, I’m just discussing my approach.

Greet them at the Door

This is a small thing, but I saw Dave Rudden do this when he visited my school and I made a mental note to do it every time I do an author visit. I stand at the door and say hello to the students as they filter in. It was pouring rain when I was there so they were rushing in to get out of the rain and I thanked them for coming in.

Acknowledge the Moment

All I mean by this is to try and level the playing ground with a nod to the fact that they had to queue up to get in the Hall to see me.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said, “I stood out in the rain and got soaked waiting to get in here, this better be a good talk.”

Be Honest

Again, all I mean by this is to just go over what you’re going to talk about. I told them I’m simply going to tell them some stories about my life and try to make them laugh. With 200 students in the Hall, it’s hard to do any kind of workshop, and since they are Year 10, it’s statistically likely that some, if not a lot of the students, aren’t avid readers. I always find it interesting when authors visit the school library I manage and ask me how many students have read their book. The likelyhood is always low, despite the librarian’s best efforts, especially when you are speaking to over 200 people.

Being honest about your talk, what you’re going to do and just acknowledging the moment is a great help in my opinion.

Avoid Complicated Presentations

No sound, don’t bother with sound, this is just my opinion. It will drive the librarian insane. I just have pics but that’s because my talk is about my life and where I’m from and the experiences I’ve had in my life.

Talk About How Difficult Writing Is

I don’t really sugar coat it, I’m not saying you do either, but it’s important to tell them how hard it can be if they want to be a creative person. I tell them not to listen to people around them who are telling them to do something else, but I also tell them that I had over 100 rejections for Missiles. I tell them about writing poetry and short stories in Canada as a young adult and being overwhelmed with despair because of the constant rejection. I read some of the rejection letters out, I tell them how strange and snobby the publishing industry can be, I tell them I don’t make any real money and not to write a book to make money.

Promote Other Books

I spend a huge amount of time promoting great graphic novels and novels by other authors, I love doing it. I love talking up other authors and telling the kids to make sure their librarian has a copy on their shelves. I love asking the kids what they like to read and watch and do, like video games or anything, and I try to tie it in to great books they can read.

Tell Stories

This is just something I like to do, I love telling stories. I love telling stories where I messed up or made an ass of myself or was a kid and did stuff that I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I just think it makes it more honest and real. Talk about the things you love to do as well. I discussed my love of D&D of course and immediately saw a physical reaction from some of the students which prompted a great D&D talk.

Read from your Book

This might be an obvious one, but doing a reading and stopping and discussing why you wrote it that way or what was going through your mind when you wrote it can, in my opinion, really help with delivering an honest presentation.

That’s it, I spoke for an hour at each school and had an amazing time, I think speaking to older year groups can be a bit more daunting but if you focus on being honest I feel it can be really fun and rewarding.