Voice: The Holy Grail of writing and why you have to find it. (grades 8-12)

What If? An imaginative way to teach students about plotting. (grades 1-12)

Words Do Make the Man (errr, Woman): How to develop believable characters using a word game and some imagination. (grades 4-12)

Rewrite, Rework, Revise: The value of editing and some techniques to tighten and
improve students' writing. (grades 2-12)

How to Get Published: A fail-proof way to seeing your writing in print, or how 1 beat the odds and was published. (grades 1-12)

What Is a Writer? 35% dreamer, 25% bibliophile, 20% salesman, 20% obstinate fool.  Imagination, reading and research, marketer, and perseverance guru. (adults)

Can Your Setting be a Character? How to use setting as more than just the place
something happened. (grades 4-12)

So You Want to be a Millionaire? The realities and myths of being a writer. (grades 8- 12)

Put One Foot in Front of the Other: You have to write before you can be published.

How to develop an idea into a Great American Novel. (grades 6-12)

Let Them Dream: The role of imagination and daydreaming in a child's life and some of the amazing places our dreams can take us. (for teachers, librarians, and parents)

In addition to these workshops, I am willing to discuss topics with which a teacher whose class needs help in a particular writing area.

1 am also willing to come as a writer to schools that need a bridge between their usual curriculum and the terrible pain students feel on the loss of one of their classmates.  Many times students need a nonthreatening way to open up, and novels such as Aimee can provide a route for them to say what needs to be said and ask what needs to be asked.  It is horrifying that some schools view suicide and death as something that should not be discussed, or that such discussion leads students to commit suicide or glorifies death.  Children who have lost friends need to try and understand their loss, just as adults do.  To tell them not to talk about it is to invite disaster.  The number one way of preventing suicide is to listen and talk to a depressed or suicidal person.  Yet there are schools saying that students shouldn't talk about suicide. Please break the taboo and open up to kids in pain.  Let them talk.  Listen to them.  Give them a means of expressing their grief, anger, and fear.