Shane Peacock

Readings

I give an energetic presentation designed to excite students about reading. I begin by telling them how I progressed, as a kid, from being bored about reading to becoming enthralled. I discuss the importance of reading and writing about things you are passionate about, then explain how I became a writer, which leads to an investigation of the many unusual and dramatic subjects I have researched and written about, including sumo wrestling, high-wire walking, rodeo bull riding, and the life of the extraordinary but bizarre Sherlock Holmes. I sometimes demonstrate sumo techniques and wire walking. I also discuss my novels, especially how I conceived them, and then give a dramatic reading from either the Dylan Maples Adventures or the Boy Sherlock Holmes series, and sometimes show a brief clip from one of my television documentaries, usually of either a dramatic high-wire walk, or the exploits of two eccentric men who travel across Canada with a stuffed beaver and a notebook, investigating its strange past. Interaction is encouraged at certain moments, especially at the end, when students are free to ask questions. I am happy to sign autographs, if students are allowed the time to have wait for them, and often give out tattoos or bookmarks.

Special Equipment:

TV with VCR/DVD player.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed.

Workshops

I speak about the basic elements of story writing, beginning with how one gets an idea, through researching, to how to create effective conclusions, dealing with each element in turn, using question and answer techniques to work with the students to find the solutions to potential problems. They are encouraged to tell me about their stories and what their successes and roadblocks have been. There is also a good deal of reading aloud, both from my work, and theirs.

Special Equipment:

TV with VCR/DVD player.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed.

Biography

When I was a boy I wasn’t a big fan of reading. I was never one of those “brains” or “bookworms” who always had his head buried in a book or dreamt of being a writer from the time he was shaking a rattle. I wanted to play hockey! But before I reached secondary school, I had learned how much I loved stories, especially dramatic ones with larger-than-life, unusual heroes, who did extraordinary things and found themselves entangled in action-packed narratives with surprising endings.

I attended Trent University and the University of Toronto, studying Literature, wanting all the stories to be like that, and then set out to write about big characters for myself, first finding real-life ones to put in magazine stories as a journalist, then in a biography (The Great Farini about a man who walked over Niagara Falls on a high wire) for Penguin Books, and finally in novels, mostly for young readers. I also wrote plays for an acclaimed outdoor theatre, again exploring extraordinary people, like Farini, real spies caught behind enemy lines, and mad country preachers.

My kids’ novels, notably The Dylan Maples Adventures, which tell tales about a Toronto lad who gets involved in some pretty remarkable events in various Canadian provinces, and The Boy Sherlock Holmes series, which for the first time in literature, reveals the dark and surprising past of the world’s greatest detective, have been short-listed for and won many awards. The Sherlock stories are ongoing, have gained a wide North American audience, and are making their way into many other languages and countries.