Readings and Workshops

I am available for readings and workshops, for both adults and children.

Here is a list of topics I have covered, but it is not exhaustive. Contact me to discuss specific requests or areas of interest.

· The writing process

· Writing from experience

· Writing historical fiction: using fact in fiction

· Writing creative non-fiction: using fiction in fact

My YA novel, Eyewitness, particularly lends itself to curriculum-oriented workshops. My workshops can complement studies of Canadian and BC history, the fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company, Aboriginal peoples, contact between Aboriginal people and European immigrants, concepts of justice and so on.

I bring with me artifacts and furs, lent by the Fort St. James National Historic Site, and can involve students in role playing games based on historically accurate information about the way of life in the “Siberia of the fur trade” in the early 19th century.

Fox Winter is based on my own encounter with a starving fox in my backyard one winter. Workshops demonstrate how a personal experience can be turned into a satisfying story – something students can do for themselves in their own writing.

 

Knocking on the Moonlit Door can be the basis of workshops on a number of topics: the art of writing engaging creative non-fiction; the sense of place; the personal essay; synthesizing experience; seeing past the obvious.

Adrift on the Ark lends itself to workshops of using personal experience as material, on observation, on a personal approach to ecological and environmental concerns, and on animals and our place in the world.

Rates:

$150 for a one hour session

$250 for a half day (in schools this might be three periods or more).

Travel not included

These rates are negotiable. Please email me for further details: magpye@shaw.ca