Skyping with 6th Graders

Have I mentioned how much I love the way Skype allows me to teach my own 7th grade students all day and still have time for a virtual author visit with kids halfway across the country before I make dinner?

Today’s crew of 6th graders, Mrs. Duff’s class in Oelwein, Iowa, read The Brilliant Fall of  Gianna Z. this fall and prepared some great questions for our virtual visit.  Here’s a quick sampling:

What was the inspiration for GIANNA Z? 
My students and their mandatory 7th grade leaf project.

How many drafts did you have to write before it was published?  18.  Then we did copy edits.

Are you going to write a sequel? 
Yes. I already did. Zig is the main character in that one. If you’d like to read it some day, please write a nice letter to my publisher to let them know!

What’s the last movie you saw?  Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which was fun because I’d just been to the Smithsonian for research last spring.

What’s your favorite book?
 
It’s so hard to choose, but I have to say Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  And I loved When You Reach Me, too.

Hey! We’re reading that book now. Will you play $20,000 Pyramid with us?  Sure!

Ready?  Sleds. Shovels. Angels. Toboggans...    THINGS YOU DO IN THE SNOW!!!!!!!  **cheers and dances**

Turns out I didn’t actually win $20,000 but that’s okay.  Chatting with such a fun, interesting group of kids was priceless.  Thanks, 6th graders and Mrs. Duff!

Novels in verse, discovery drafts, writing music, & Skype

A few weeks ago in the advanced creative writing class that and I co-teach, one of our 7th grade girls had a question about writing novels in verse that stumped us. "Is it better for me to just write these poems as they come to me, do you think? Or should I have an outline first?" Having never written a novel in verse, I wasn’t sure how most people approach the process, but never fear… a talented author and Skype came to the rescue!

Lisa Schroeder, the author of I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME, FAR FROM YOU, and the soon-to-be-released CHASING BROOKLYN, woke up bright and early on the West Coast to join us for a 9AM class in Northern New York.

Since Skype is already installed on my desktop computer, we didn’t need to do anything special to prepare. When Lisa called us at the appointed time, we projected her onto the big screen, and the kids came up to the computer one at a time to ask their questions.

Lisa chatted about her writing with my 7th grade writers with a genuine thoughtfulness and warmth that stayed with the kids long after their Q and A session was over. (In fact, I saw the girl from this photo in the library later on. "That Skype chat was awesome!" she said. "I was thinking about it all through math class.")

Some highlights? Lisa shared her process for writing novels in verse, including the fact that music plays a role. She mentioned bands like Lifehouse and Evanescence that help to inspire her words. She encouraged our young writers to read and read and read some more and shared some of her favorite authors, too — like John Green, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Sarah Dessen. I saw a couple of our kids smile great big smiles when Lisa admitted that she doesn’t always know all the answers when she starts writing a book. It felt like she was giving them permission to do that "discovery draft" as well, to figure things out along the way and then go back to revise.

After our Skype session, our students tweeted what they felt were some of the key points on our class Twitter account (@MessnerEnglish), so that schools that haven’t tried Skype chats could get a sense of how valuable (and fun!) they can be. Thank you so much, Lisa, for sharing your time and talent with our kids!

If you’re a teacher, librarian, or author looking for more resources on how all this works, here are a few links to check out:

Lisa Schroeder’s Skype an Author page (And she’s fantastic with kids!)
The Skype an Author Network
School Library Journal technology feature on Skyping authors: "Met Any Good Authors Lately?"
An updated list of authors who Skype with Book Clubs

Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs

Note: Please note that due to the pandemic and lost income, many authors have had to limit or suspend free Q&A sessions  and are instead offering paid visits or low-cost author visit webinars. Please reach out to individual authors to request current information!

Welcome to the Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs List!  I’m Kate Messner, the children’s author and educator who maintains this site.  I started it because I’ve found that virtual author visits are a great way to connect authors and readers, and I realize that many schools facing budget troubles don’t have the option of paid author visits. With that in mind, this is a list of authors who offer free 15-20-minute Q and A sessions with classes and book clubs that have finished reading one of their books.

How does a Skype virtual visit work?  Click here to read a blog entry about my students’ virtual visit with the fantastic Laurie Halse Anderson. It includes an overview of how a virtual chat with an author might work, as well as tips for teachers, librarians, & book club organizers to help your virtual visit run smoothly.  You can click here to read my first School Library Journal technology feature on virtual author visits, called “Met Any Good Authors Lately? Classroom Visits Can  Happen Via Skype” and this follow-up SLJ feature, “An Author in Every Classroom: Kids Connecting with Authors via Skype. It’s the next best thing to being there.”

Authors Who Skype With Classes & Book Clubs (for free!)

The following authors offer free 15-minute virtual chats with book clubs and classes that have read one of their books! (Most also offer more in-depth virtual visits for a fee.) To arrange a virtual visit, check out the authors’ websites for book choices and contact information.  Then ask for their books at your favorite bookstore or visit IndieBound to find a store near you!

For Picture Book & Young Chapter Book Readers 

Beth Anderson

Marsha Diane Arnold
Sarah Aronson
Mike Artell
Louise Borden
Donna Janell Bowman
Larry Dane Brimner
Leslie Bulion
Rachelle Burk
Nancy Castaldo
Tracey M. Cox
Katie Davis
Keila Dawson
Erin Dealey
Lori Degman
Elizabeth Dulemba
Kathy Duval
Carol Gordon Ekster
Jonathan Emmett
Jill Esbaum
Carol Gordon Esker
Julie Falatko
Terry Farish
Alison Ashley Formento
Julie Fortenberry
Sonia Clark Foster
Josh Funk
Laura Gehl
Kristin L. Gray
Jenna Grodzicki
Susan Hood
Laurie Jacobs
Lisa Jahn-Clough
Shelli R. Johannes
Rebecca C. Jones
Jacqueline Jules
Jess Keating
Jane Kohuth
Jane Kurtz
Kevin Kurtz
Lindsey Lane
Heather Lang
Kara Lareau
Tara Lazar
Gail Carson Levine
Nancy Tupper Ling
Deb Lund
JoAnn Early Macken
Wendy Martin
Sarah Jane Marsh
Jamie Michalak
Kate Narita
Christopher Silas Neal
Judy Carey Nevin
Kim Norman
Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Wendy Orr
Ammi-Joan Paquette
Erica Perl
Gina Perry
Annette Pimentel
Sally J. Pla
J.L. Powers
Candice Ransom
Elizabeth Raum
Jean Reidy
Mara Rockliff
Madelyn Rosenberg
Barb Rosenstock
Michelle Schaub
Jody Jensen Shaffer
Michael Shoulders
Amy Sklansky
Margo Sorenson
Ruth Spiro
Sarah Sullivan
Jane Sutcliffe
Jennifer Swanson
Debbie A. Taylor
Holly Thompson
Laurie Ann Thompson
Carmella Van Vleet
Nancy Viau
Stef Wade
Laurie Wallmark
Jennifer Ward
Lee Wardlaw
Dianne White
Robin Yardi

For Middle Grade Readers (Ages 8-12)

Sarah Albee
John David Anderson
R.J. Anderson
Aubre Andrus
Kathi Appelt
Sarah Aronson
Hannah Barnaby
Tracy Barrett
Nora Raleigh Baskin
Dale Basye
W.H. Beck
Brooks Benjamin
Eric Berlin
Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
Julie Berry
Jenn Bishop
Megan Frazer Blakemore
Karen Blumethal
Ellen Booraem
F.T. Bradley
Larry Dane Brimner
Leslie Bulion
Tamara Bundy
Lisa Bunker
Stephanie Burgis
Rachelle Burk
Kathleen Burkinshaw
Dori Hillestad Butler
Rebecca Caprara
Caroline Carson
Nancy Castaldo
Jennifer Cervantes
Paula Chase
Samantha M. Clark
Melanie Conklin
Lindsay Currie
Debbie Dadey
Elisabeth Dahl
Tara Dairman
Danielle Davis
Katie Davis
Kenneth C. Davis
Karen Day
Julia DeVillers
Jill Diamond
Erin Dionne
Bonnie Doerr
Rebecca Donnelly
Gail Donovan
Jen Swann Downey
Kathleen Duble
Kathleen Duey
Brianna DuMont
Sarah Beth Durst
Peggy Eddleman
Terry Farish
Mary Cronk Farrell
Jody Feldman
Greg Fishbone
Jo Franklin
D. Dina Friedman
Kimberly Newton Fusco
Dee Garretson
Dan Gemeinhart
Karina Yan Glaser
Chris Grabenstein
Mike Graf
Kristin L. Gray
Amy Butler Greenfield
Danette Haworth
Mary Winn Heider
Bridget Heos
Tess Hilmo
Shannon Hitchcock
Bridget Hodder
Sara Lewis Holmes
Amanda Hosch
Jacqueline Houtman
Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Michele Weber Hurwitz
Mark Jeffrey
Janet Johnson
Terry Lynn Johnson
Rebecca C. Jones
Jess Keating
Lynne Kelly
Derek Taylor Kent
Rose Kent
Morgan Keyes
Kristen Kittscher
Jo Knowles
Jane Kurtz
R.L. LaFevers
Irene Latham
Jessica Leader
Lindsey Leavitt
Claire Legrand
Jarrett Lerner
Gail Carson Levine
Debbie Levy
Joanne Levy
Cynthea Liu
Nikki Loftin
C. Alexander London
Dayna Lorentz
Eric Luper
JoAnn Early Macken
Wendy McLeod MacKnight
Diane Magras
Andrew Maraniss
Leslie Margolis
Nan Marino
Sarah Jane Marsh
Laura Williams McCaffrey
Stephen McCranie
Robin Mellom
Laurie Morrison
Rita Murphy
Mahtab Narsimhan
Richard Newsome
Wendy Orr
Alexandra Ott
Ammi-Joan Paquette
Mitali Perkins
Erica Perl
Jen Petro-Roy
Sally J. Pla
J.L. Powers
Sarah Prineas
Katie Quirk
Candice Ransom
Elizabeth Raum
Laura Resau
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Yolanda Ridge
Anica Mrose Rissi
Mara Rockliff
Dee Romito
Madelyn Rosenberg
Susan Ross
Dianne Salerni
Augusta Scattergood
Laura Schaefer
Lisa Schroeder
Heidi Schulz
Rachel Searles
Adam Selzer
Liesl Shurtliff
Shari Simpson
Laurel Snyder
Margo Sorenson
Tricia Springtubb
Anna Staniszewski
Nanci Turner Steveson
Amy Stewart
Catherine Stine
Sarah Sullivan
Jane Sutcliffe
Jennifer Swanson
Elly Swartz
Erin Teagan
Holly Thompson
Laurie Ann Thompson
Melissa Thomson
Jennifer Trafton
Anne Ursu
Greg van Eekhout
Carmella Van Vleet
Nancy Viau
Rob Vlock
J and P Voelkel
Beth Vrabel
Lee Wardlaw
Cynthia Willis
Dianna Winget
Barry Wolverton
Barbara Wright
Robin Yardi
Karen Romano Young
Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

For Teen Readers
(Also check out the list of adult authors below; many also work with teens.)

Karen Akins
E. Kristin Anderson
R.J. Anderson
Ann Angel
Kathi Appelt
Heidi Ayarbe
Kim Baccellia
Pam Bachorz
Cyn Balog
Tracey Baptiste
Tracy Barrett
Janice Gable Bashman
Lauren Bjorkman
Deborah Blumenthal
Karen Blumethal
Sarah Rees Brennan
Larry Dane Brimner
Jessica Burkhart
Kay Cassidy
Angela Cerrito
Crissa-Jean Chappell
Paula Chase
Bethany Crandell
Mary Crockett
Ellen Dee Davidson
Kenneth C. Davis
Christa Desir
Stephanie Diaz
Jaclyn Dolamore
Kathleen Duble
Kathleen Duey
Sarah Beth Durst
Debby Dahl Edwardson
Terry Farish
Christina Farley
Beth Fehlbaum
Alison Ashley Formento
Megan Frazer Blakemore
D. Dina Friedman
Margie Gelbwasser
David Macinnis Gill
Lori Goldstein
Carla Gunn
Teri Hall
Brendan Halpin
S.A. Harazin
Sue Harrison
Cheryl Renee Herbsman
Jim C. Hines
Jennifer Hubbard
Jennifer Jabaley
Denise Jaden
Lisa Jahn-Clough
Christine Johnson
Jennifer Kam
Tara Kelly
James Kennedy
Jo Knowles
Daniel Kraus
Nina LaCour
Marie Lamba
Kristen Landon
Lindsey Lane
Mackenzi Lee
Claire Legrand
Anita Liberty
Catherine Linka
Sarah Darer Littman
Cynthea Liu
Dayna Lorentz
Amber Lough
Elisa Ludwig
Eric Luper
Sarah Maclean
Torrey Maldonado
Andrew Maraniss
Leslie Margolis
Peter Marino
Laura Williams McCaffrey
Kate McGovern
Neesha Meminger
Dawn Metcalf
Marissa Meyer
Lynn Miller-Lachman
Megan Miranda
Saundra Mitchell
Mike Mullin
Elisa Nader
Greg Neri
Patricia Newman
Caragh O’Brien
Sarah Ockler
Micol Ostow
Maria Padian
Ammi-Joan Paquette
Mark H. Parsons
Jackson Pearce
Ashley Perez
Mitali Perkins
Erica Perl
Amy Plum
Gae Polisner
J.L. Powers
Laura Resau
Beth Revis
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Emily Ross
Lena Roy
Amy Kathleen Ryan
Carrie Ryan
Dianne Salerni
Peter Salomon
Sydney Salter
Karen Sandler
Eliot Schrefer
Lisa Schroeder
Inara Scott
Adam Selzer
Kristina Springer
Alison Stine
Catherine Stine
Laurie Stolarz
Holly Thompson
Laurie Ann Thompson
Tiffany Trent
Melissa Walker
Lee Wardlaw
Carly Anne West
Amy Brecount White
Kathryn Williams
Elaine Wolf
Mary Rose Wood


For Adult Readers
(Also check out the authors listed above; middle grade & teen novels can be great book club selections!)

Michele Albion
Alma Alexander
Amy Alkon
Christa Allan
Charlene Ann Baumbich
Sandra Gulland
Carla Gunn
Sue Harrison
Gail Carson Levine
M.M. Holaday
Sarah Maclean
Andrew Maraniss
Louise Mathewson
Maryann McFadden
Kitty Morse
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Kelly Simmons
Garth Stein
Amy Stewart
Holly Thompson
Gwendolyn Zepeda
 

For Authors & Illustrators:  If you’re an author or illustrator of a traditionally published book who would like to be added, please email me (katemessner books at gmail dot com) with your name, website, and publisher, and whether you write picture books, MG, YA, or adult.  For the sake of being clear, traditionally published means published in print by a widely recognized children’s book publisher. I recognize that e-books and self-published titles are also part of the publishing world, but a list that encompasses all of those would simply be too overwhelming for me to maintain. If someone would like to start a list of ebook and self-published authors who Skype, I think that would be great, and I’ll happily link to it here. So again…this is a list of traditionally published authors who offer FREE 15-20 minute Skype chats with classrooms & book clubs that have read one of their books.

If you’re a bookseller or book club member, teacher, or librarian, thanks for stopping by – and feel free to comment with any questions!

For authors interested in Skype virtual visits…

Children’s author Mona Kerby and school library media specialist Sarah Chauncey have teamed up to create the Skype an Author Network, an terrific online resource to help authors who offer virtual visits connect with teachers and librarians. If you’re interested in offering this kind of virtual visit, they’d love to have you click on this link to learn more about joining.  Sarah has also asked me to pass along a request for patience…since it will take a while to get everyone added.  (Thanks to edulemba  for passing along this link to me!)

Welcome to the Future

As a teacher, I’m so very fortunate to work in a school district that supports creative technology integration in the classroom. The kind of technology that let my kids chat with Laurie Halse Anderson via Skype last week. The kind that lets them participate in Harvard University’s River City research project about how science-based virtual reality games can promote authentic scientific inquiry. It’s a school district that just gave me permission to visit other teachers’ classrooms from my desk during my lunch hour, to talk with their kids about my books and writing.  I’m thankful for all of that.

I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have that kind of technology or the kind of leadership that recognizes how it can help kids explore and learn. Sometimes, there’s fear of what’s "out there."  My own district has blocking software that used to filter out all of LiveJournal, but a discussion with our technology boss about the author blogs that my kids read and love prompted some tweaks to let your blogs through. I truly believe that teachers and administrators AND students need to have those kinds of talks. If you’re interested in how kids are taught in schools, you’ll want to check out this video of Peggy Sheehy’s student keynote for the Net Generation Project (thanks to coolcatteacher for the link!). It’s a wonderful way to begin the conversation.


Find more videos like this on grownupdigital

Virtual Author Visits: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, & the Awesome

There’s been a lot of online chatter lately about virtual author visits, and as someone who wears two hats, I’ve been paying special attention. Because I’m a middle school English teacher as well as an author, my ability to travel for school visits is somewhat limited, so I’ll be using Skype videoconferencing software to offer virtual visits to classrooms and book clubs when THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z is released in September.


I also love the idea of my own students having more opportunities to talk with authors, and today my 7th graders had a virtual visit with the amazing Laurie Halse Anderson. We read CHAINS this winter and were swept away, so the kids had lots of questions about how Laurie researched the novel and brought her characters to life. Laurie is planning to offer virtual visits for schools starting in the fall, and we were thrilled to be her guinea pigs. Our kids piled into the auditorium at 9:45 this morning and waited for my laptop to ring with Laurie’s 10am call on Skype.

And then there she was!

Laurie and I agreed to double team an online review of our virtual visit – I’m providing a teacher’s perspective, and she’s blogging about the experience from the author’s point of view over at halseanderson .  So here are my thoughts on virtual visits: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome…

The Good:

~Laurie is not only an incredibly talented author but also a friendly, generous, down-to-earth person, and that came through on the big screen, too. Our 7th graders loved her before this visit; they love her more now.

~She gave answers that were just long enough but not too long. We had time for about 30 kids to ask questions in a 45-minute visit, and they were just thrilled. When the kids asked about her research, she held up her latest sources.

~Our plan to keep things organized worked. Students knew who was asking questions and when it was their turn. I gave each interviewer a rundown, along with an index card with the question her or she wrote.


Kids were on “standby” when the person before them on the list was talking with Laurie, and that kept things moving along.

~The setup for this virtual visit was pretty much painless.

~I brought in my laptop from home (a MacBook with a built-in camera), connected it to the projector in our auditorium, hooked the computer into the school network, and patched it into our sound system.

~Skype worked like it was supposed to work 95% of the time. (See “the Ugly” for the other 5%)

The Bad: (What we’d do differently next time)

~Sometimes, it was hard for our auditorium audience to hear the questions being asked. Our interviewers were facing Laurie on the laptop, rather than the other students. Next time we do a virtual author visit, I’ll remind the kids about the need to speak up, try to get a microphone set up, or perhaps ask if our author might be willing to repeat questions before answering.

The Ugly:

~Skype is wonderful and magical and free. It is also subject to the whims of all sorts of Internet bandwidth, firewall, and other technology issues that I don’t entirely understand. As a result, four or five times during our virtual visit, we simply lost the connection. Laurie’s face would freeze mid-sentence, and we had to hang up and call her back. Usually, that all happened within a few seconds, but once I had to quit Skype and re-launch the application before we could get our connection back, and that took an extra minute. Overall, the interruptions were annoying but manageable.

The Awesome:

~Kids who I never dreamed would stand and share a question were so excited to talk with Laurie. She treated each student like his or her question was the most important one in the world. I watched their faces as they listened. They glowed.

~My class was watching the ALA video-conference from Denver last month and cheered when Laurie was announced as the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement. We cheered again today and loved that she could hear us this time!

~We also got to listen to Laurie read the first few pages of FORGE, the sequel to CHAINS, told from the point of view of Isabel’s friend, Curzon. It is so full of promise that I don’t know how I’m going to wait until 2010 to read the rest.

Thanks, Laurie, for such a wonderful morning with our kids!

If you want to read about another author/illustrator’s experience, Elizabeth Dulemba has an extensive blog post on her first virtual visit, too.

And finally….a to-do list for teachers who want to set up a Skype virtual author visit.

1. Download Skype at home and try it out with someone you know. Figure out how it works. It’s pretty simple, but you’ll want to make sure you’re comfortable before you set up a visit.

2. Contact your technology coordinator to see if you can use Skype at school. Some will say yes. Some will say no. And some will wave magic wands and adjust bandwidth restrictions and unblock things so you can pull it off. Send them chocolate later.

3. Contact the author with whom you’d like to have a virtual visit. Find out about availability, technology needs, and fees. Also be aware that video chats aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, so if an author says no thanks, respect that.

4. Once you’ve set up a date and time (morning may be best to avoid high usage Internet times), reserve the space where you’ll be having your virtual visit. Make sure the equipment you’ll need is available and working. If you’re not good with technology, enlist the help of a co-worker who is. Send that person chocolate later, too.

5. Make a plan for your virtual visit. How long will it last? (30-45 minutes seems to be perfect.) Who will ask questions? Where will they stand? Where do they go when they’re done? If you figure it out ahead of time, you won’t have to interrupt your visit to deal with questions.

6. Talk to your students about etiquette for a virtual author visit. In many ways, it’s just like having a guest speaker in your auditorium or classroom in person, and kids need to know that all the same rules about courteous behavior apply. It will also be important for them to know that technical issues are a possibility and that their quiet cooperation will help you get things fixed more quickly.

7. Test Skype at school. It doesn’t matter if you’ve tested it at home; things are different on school networks, and you don’t want to discover a problem when it’s time for your virtual visit.

8. On the day of your virtual visit, launch Skype and either call the author or wait for him/her to call you – whatever you agreed upon in advance. Know that there may be technical problems, but you’ll be able to fix them. You may want to have kids bring books for silent reading in case there’s an extended period of lost contact. Planning and flexibility (and a sense of humor!) will go a long way toward making your virtual author visit a great experience!

One more thing….

9. After your virtual visit, would you stop back here and let me know how it goes? I can’t wait to hear more about kids & authors coming together through technology!

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