Marsha Skrypuch

Readings

Marsha can do presentations on a single aspect outlined below, or she can tailor to your school's needs, combining several themes in a single presentation:

A Passion for Books:
One of Marsha's most popular presentations is about her own literacy struggles.
Marsha tricked her teachers into thinking she knew how to read until it all caught up with her in grade 4 when she failed the provincial reading exam. Adding insult to injury, they made her repeat the whole year. As the tallest and oldest kid in the class, she didn't want to be seen learning to read with little skinny books and she was too proud to ask for help, so she taught herself how to read by taking out the fattest book in the children's section of the Brantford Public Library -- Oliver Twist. She kept on renewing it for a whole year. Reading that book was a turning point in her life. She decided that she loved reading big fat fiction, and wanted to write it too.
Marsha's story resonates with students, especially those who are struggling academically or who feel "different".

Writing Workshop:
Self-editing techniques that students have fun doing. Building characters from the inside out. How to create a great villain. Techniques for plunging a story into action

YOUR writing!
In a lively question and answer session, Marsha listens to students' writing problems and suggests ways to resolve them.

Book Presentations:
"Who remembers the Armenians now?" (Hitler, 1941)
Marsha talks about the real people and the history behind her Armenian genocide novels.

A Century of Untold Ukrainian Stories:
Marsha reveals the background, research, and real people behind her Ukrainian books.

A picture book from start to finish:
Marsha reads portions of her rough drafts and shows students how many changes she had to make. She also shows them early artwork and lets them compare it with the published artwork. She enjoys regaling the kids with stories of mistakes.

Special Equipment:

n/a

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed, if requested.

Workshops

As the founder of Brantford Book Camp, I have organized week-long sessions of writing workshops each August since 2002. I have also run Brantford Summer Writing Workshops for two years and was an instructor at the Humber School for Writers in 2007. My most popular workshops are:

Creating passionate readers:
Marsha didn't learn to read until she was nine years old. She talks about how levelled readers inoculated her against literacy and how she was able to teach herself how to read with big fat novels after she failed grade four.
Marsha shares the story of how she became a passionate reader and how each child is only one book away from that passion. She shares how she became a writer and why she is passionate about revealing in her books the flakes of history that have been shoved under the carpet.

Who remembers the Armenians now? (Hitler, 1941)
Historical novelist Marsha Skrypuch talks about the real people and the history behind her Armenian genocide novels, Aram's Choice, Nobody's Child and The Hunger. Readings from her upcoming novels, Call Me Aram, and Daughter of War.

Special Equipment:

n/a

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed, if requested.

Biography

I didn't learn how to read until I was 9 years old, but once I discovered reading, it opened a whole new world for me. I love writing page-turning books on serious subjects -- an exciting challenge!

Marsha tricked her teachers into thinking she knew how to read until it all caught up with her in grade 4 when she failed the provincial reading exam. Adding insult to injury, they made her repeat the whole year. As the tallest and oldest kid in the class, she didn't want to be seen learning to read with little skinny books and she was too proud to ask for help, so she taught herself how to read by taking out the fattest book in the children's section of the Brantford Public Library -- Oliver Twist. She kept on renewing it for a whole year.

Reading that book was a turning point in her life. She decided that she loved reading big fat fiction, and wanted to write it too. She devoured novels by the gallon.

Her grade 10 English teacher sent her to the vice principal's office because she asked too many questions in class. She was placed in enriched English as punishment and loved every minute of it. She took a degree in English at the University of Western Ontario. She needed a language option to complete her degree but she wasn't very good in French so she stupidly signed up for Russian. Everyone else in Russian class was a native speaker and Marsha didn't even know the alphabet. She made herself flash cards and practiced each morning on the bus as she went to school. She got the lowest mark in the class, but she did pass!

Upon graduating, she backpacked around Europe, and then took the first job she could get when she got home: selling industrial supplies. She was the first woman in Canada to sell industrial supplies. Marsha taught herself how to design grinding wheels, recommend drills and so on.

While selling industrial supplies was interesting, Marsha never forgot her first dream, which was to become an author. She went back to school and got her Master's degree in library science, figuring this would help her with research techniques. She worked as a librarian for a brief time, but then turned her hand to writing. After 100 rejections, her first book was published in 1996. Her 11th book is coming out in 2008.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:
I have done keynote addresses, workshops, PD days. I am a very flexible speaker, often doing four entirely different presentations within the same day.