In local (Merrick) MG and YA author Jen Calonita's assemblies, she takes students on a journey of how she went from a reluctant reader in elementary school to a New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels for publishers including Disney, Sourcebooks, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Random House.
Focusing on how reluctant readers can find the right books to hook them on reading, Jen discusses how she developed a love of writing, which inspired her to become an entertainment journalist who interviewed everyone from The Rock to Zac Efron. Her work inspired her first book series, Secrets of My Hollywood Life, and in her presentation, she shares how young writers can turn their ideas into their own stories. Following the advice that "Writing is rewriting," Jen takes students from idea to book completion and shows them how the book and publishing process works, while giving students a glimpse into book editing.
Interested schools can discuss a variety of booking options, including large assemblies or a mix of an assembly and smaller group writing workshops. Jen offers both a twisting fairy tales workshop (similar to her book series, Disney's Twisted Tales) where students will work on their own "new and improved" fairy tale, and also offers an editing workshop to teach students how to revise their own writing. For that workshop, students will learn how to edit and help edit a first draft of a chapter from one of Jen's books, then leave with the finalized version to see how much writing changes from start to finish.
Keywords
1.) Writing 2.) Writer (also Poet)
Categories
Literature (LI)
Exploratory Enrichment Subject Area
N/A
Grades
K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Location
In School
Cost
$2,000.00
per Wrkshp & Perfrm
Full-day including one assembly (approx 45-55 minutes) and two writing workshops or a combination of assemblies and workshops
