When I was about to graduate high school I vacillated between the choice of two career paths: writing and teaching. When I mentioned the writing option I was often met with phrases like, “Writers don’t make very much money” or “That’s not a super stable job”. But when I mentioned teaching… people gushed about how good I was with kids and how teachers got great benefits. These comments made sense to the 18-year-old me. I’m a pretty practical person, so I chose teaching. **

But I think the real reason probably goes deeper than that. In hindsight I think I didn’t choose writing because I didn’t know any writers. My parents weren’t writers, not that they were teachers either, but I was surrounded by teachers on a daily basis. I knew what their lives and career work looked like… everything from their yearly calendar to daily tasks, from participating in homecoming dress up days to the necessity of learning how to pee in the three minute window of passing time. In fact, I doubt I’d ever met a writer. At least… one who openly claimed the title.

Again, in hindsight I realize that statement isn’t entirely true. I spent a lot of time with pastors, who wrote weekly sermons and coaches who wrote performance evaluations. There were probably all sorts of people in my life who wrote items for newsletters, letters to the editor and memories for the historical society. It is just as probable that I had a neighbor who journaled religiously, a boss who spent their weekends writing stand up comedy sketches or heck, maybe even another peer who filled notebooks with stories the way I did. But I don’t remember anyone talking to me about being a writer.

But eventually, I did find my way to writing, and when I do school visits as an author, that is at the heart of my message. “Hi,” I tell the students. “I’m a writer. Being a writer is a real job. People pay me to create stories. I pay my bills with this money. No, it’s not a lot, but still, can you imagine anything more magical? Me neither.”

Okay, so now you don’t have to hire me, because you know my spiel. :) But honest to goodness… seeing it, hearing it, knowing that someone else is doing what you want to do… that makes it real. That makes all the difference.

If you want to make an impact on a young writer, invite a professional one into your classroom. It could be an author, but it could also be a journalist, a historian or a copy editor. It could be a magazine editor, a website content creator or a screenwriter. It could be a blogger, a technical writer or a playwright. Show your students their options and watch for what lights them up.

This is the magic of author visits.

Here are three additional reasons to invest in author visits.

Guest Speakers Bring Clout

Let’s face it. It is easy for students to take teachers for granted. They see us every day and acquire the distinct skill of tuning us out or putting us on mental mute. We could say, “CAPITALIZE THE WORD i” a billion times, but all they hear is the Charlie Brown teacher voice. Have a guest speaker repeat your same desired directive and suddenly, BAM! The speaker is a genius and oh-so-amazing. Your students will look at you in shock and ask, “why oh why didn’t you ever teach us that, huh?” It hurts… but in the end, you no longer have to ask them to capitalize the word i. Winning? Yes indeed.

This is precisely why I tailor my author visits to teacher requests and what skill set would be beneficial to their students. We can all work on the same team… and as long as the students get “there”, we all win.

Meeting the Standards

Most teachers I know are grateful to have standards as a guideline, but disdain having their lesson plans for the third week of second quarter hinge on standard subpoints 6.2 a-e. BUT, by inviting a guest speaker, in this case, a writer, you can cross off some of those career readiness standards in a content relevant (and super fun) way. You’re Welcome. :)

Personal Goals

Okay, I know we’re all in it for the kids, but when you invite an author into your classroom, you get to talk with them yourself. If you have writing dreams of your own, this is an incredible opportunity to ask your questions too. If you are like me, authors are your Grade A Celebrities… and being able to interact with them feels akin to walking the red carpet at the Grammys. So go on, do it… for the kids, yes, but also reap your benefits too. Because if you have to do recess duty when it’s 22 degrees outside and stay late for parent teacher conferences, you sometimes also get to rub elbows with award winning authors. (Yay you!)

There are many, many other benefits to author visits, but I know your time is short, and I’m running long on my word count, so let’s move on to making these magical visits happen, shall we?

Since I know author visits can be expensive, I’ve gathered a few resources for you to help make this curriculum-crushing (in a good way!), dream-supporting, all together amazing experience come to fruition for you and your students.

GIVEAWAY

I am giving away one free virtual author visit. Fill out this form by November 1st at midnight and be entered to win a one hour presentation + Q&A session with yours truly. To get my credentials and why I might be a valuable contribution to your classroom, click here. Also, click here to see a list of presentations I have ready to go… all of course tweak-able to meet the needs of your students and what you’d like them to learn. I’d love to do the author visit for the winning class in November, during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and inspire some young writers! In addition to virtual classroom visit, the winning class will also get a copy of two of my books (The Birthday Cache and The Orphan Train Riders: Three Historical Fiction Stories), a digital copy of Under Construction: A Young Writer’s Workbook, and a class set of bookmarks. If you don’t want to wait for the giveaway results (11/4/21) and just want to dive in and book a visit with me, click here to go to the WordNerdopolis Post Office to send me a note so we can start chatting.

When you enter you will also be added to my email list and receive a free motivational quote poster set (24 full color posters) to use in your classroom and then, 5 GOOD THINGS for TEACHERS delivered to your inbox twice a month.

Curated Author Visit List

In addition to doing her own author visits, Kate Messner, one of my favorite authors on the planet, also curated this list of authors interested in doing visits. Perhaps you can connect with one who lives in your state, dually supporting a local author and increasing the reality of the experience because look, even people in your own state do this author thing!!

Free Author Interview Videos

And finally, on this playlist you can view ten author interviews with highly acclaimed and super generous MG/YA writers who agreed to chat with me on my YouTube channel. The best part isn’t that they are free, but it's a darn good bonus if I do say so myself.

Okay? Convinced? Good. Start reaching out to authors now and get them on your calendar. Then get that writer’s books in the hands of your readers, fire them up for the opportunity to talk with a real live human who makes their money by telling stories, and then watch the magic happen.

** Side note: I graduated both high school (2001) and college (2006) before Act 10 and the demolition of our Wisconsin unions, benefits, pay increases, etc. So, the people touting “good benefits” weren’t lying, those good benefits just didn’t last past my fourth year in the education field. I haven’t reached the final chapter of my career story, but I can tell you that twelve years in, I came upon a plot twist and left full time teaching, for a part time instructor position that allowed me to more fully focus on my author goals and dreams. I’d love to share my journey and knowledge with your students with the goal of showing them that a career in the creative arts is possible.**

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