SIMON SAYS – Author Visits, Presentations and Workshops by Children’s Writers – Scheduling and Equipment

In addition to planning your workshops and presentations before your arrival at the school, make sure you discuss a schedule for your visit with the teacher making the arrangements as well. Let them know how long your sessions usually run for, the audience sizes you prefer, and any audio-visual requirements you have. If you are uncomfortable being photographed or filmed, make sure that the teachers are fully aware of that too.

At a school familiar with author visits, everything is usually well handled. However, it is not unknown for a school to have arranged too many sessions, allowing no time for students to get in and out of the library, gymnasium or wherever you are presenting. You may also be unpleasantly surprised at the size of an audience. Let’s say your presentation is very interactive and requires participation from the students.

This may be ideal with up to a hundred children or even with a single class, but could be less than perfect if you are unexpectedly faced with a group of three hundred or more. If you have specific presentations for different age ranges, or ones for which you use different props, ask the teachers if they prefer those particular sessions. You don’t want to show up at the school without the right materials.