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JUST FOR TEACHERS

ANN EVANS CHILDREN’S AUTHOR AND FEATURE WRITER

I’m a full time writer. Sharing my time between writing children’s books and feature writing. My books are geared for children aged 8-14 but adults enjoy them too. To date, I’ve had nine mystery/thriller novels published by Scholastic and Usborne. My most recent books, which you’ll find on the bookshelves now are Rampage, The Reawakening, The Beast which make up a trilogy set in the Highlands of Scotland; and the re-released Cry Danger, published by Back-to-Front Publishing. Cry Danger was first published in 1994 by Scholastic Children's Books, but had gone out of print. So it's fantastic to see it available once again.

For the last 15 years I also worked as a feature writer for the Coventry Telegraph, but recently said goodbye to that job to concentrate more on my books. However, I still do lots of feature writing for a variety of national magazines on subjects that vary from animals to antiques and a lot more besides.

I have recently been running some creative writing courses, for adults, which have gone very well. There's more in the pipeline for 2010.

Plus, I do school visits…

AUTHOR VISITS AND WORKSHOPS.

Ideally…

* I prefer to talk to one class at a time, rather than a large assembly of children, and have a maximum of four sessions per day.

* It’s always good if the children have read one of my books or looked at my website beforehand.

* It’s useful too, if they’ve had chance to think about what questions they want to ask me.

TALKS and WORKSHOPS can be focused on the children’s author aspect of my work, or the journalist/freelance feature writing side of my working life.

AS A CHILDREN’S AUTHOR……

AN AUTHOR TALK covers the type of books I’ve written, how they came to be written and how I started writing. The children get to see the different stages of a book – a typed manuscript, a manuscript after editing, proof stages, book covers, finished books and books that have been translated into different languages. All this with lots of interaction and discussion. I read a selected passage from one of my books. Followed by Q & A sessions.

WORKSHOP this will have been discussed beforehand as to the topic or theme in line with teacher's requests.

Examples of workshop themes:
* IMPROVING YOUR STORIES ie developing ideas, plotting, characterisation, pace, dialogue, atmosphere etc.

* POLISHING YOUR WORK looking at how rewriting and editing work improves it.

* HOW TO BE AN AUTHOR so you love writing and your stories are fantastic. But how do you get them into print? How do you present them? Where do you send them? What do you do about rejection? Tips and advice on all aspects of working towards being an author.

* BEING A JOURNALIST/FREELANCE WRITER - A TALK AND WORKSHOP COMBINED (For older pupils – with more time allocated e.g. a complete morning/afternoon). This session covers how you can get into this kind of work – consider why you want to be a journalist; expectations and disappointments; reality; life in a newsroom; working as a freelance writer; coping with rejection; the fun you can have! This would include examples of some of my features – each has a story behind it!

Workshop: (1): It’s your first day on the local newspaper – no you won’t be expected to make the tea – you’ll be expected to write a story or two for the paper! Help! Where do you start! Talk and tips, followed by some interviewing practice, getting the facts, perils and pitfalls, putting it all together.

Workshop (2):So you want to be a Freelance Writer…How do you make a start? What magazines could you write for? Actually the world is your oyster - Talk and tips. How to approach magazine editors; how to know what they are looking for. Getting published.

My fee for a schools visits is generally £250 for a full day in school plus travel expenses and overnight accommodation if the school is more that 70 miles from the Midlands.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
My books:

Published by Scholastic Children’s Books:

Cry Danger ISBN 0 590 13163 X Published 1995

Disaster Bay ISBN 0 590 19249 3 Published 1997

Deadly Hunter ISBN 0 590 19716 9 Published 1998

Fishing For Clues ISBN 0 439 01148 5 Published 2000

Stealing The Show ISBN 0 439 01208 2 Published 2000

Pushing His Luck ISBN 0 439 01149 3 Published 2000

Published by Usborne Publishing:

The Beast ISBN 0 7460 60343 Published 2004

The Reawakening ISBN 0 746 07882X Published 2007

Rampage ISBN 978 0 7460 7892 1 Published 2008

Published by Back-to-Front Publishing (www.back-to-front.com)

Cry Danger ISBN 1 904 529313

Look out also for… A Touch of Death (Short story) in 13 Murder Mysteries (Scholastic). ISBN 0 590 13419 1996

British Customs (Teach Yourself) Brown Publishing. ISBN 1 873803 14 1 1993.

Britain and the British – General Topics. Brown Publishing ISBN 1 873803 03 6 1992

CONTACT ME: email: ann-evans@btconnect.com