Shirlee Smith Matheson

Readings

WELCOME TO A WORLD OF ADVENTURE: Shirlee Smith Matheson’s readings are integrated with how-to sessions that invoke oral responses from students on creating characters, settings, plots, use of imagery and setting, and are illustrated by examples from her, and others, literary work. The special needs of individual classes are considered and presentations can be modified to suit students in the primary grades through to high school. She welcomes questions and discussions!

All six of Shirlee’s published young adult novels have been selected by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre for Our Choice, as well as receiving other nominations and prizes. Her award-winning adult non-fiction books have also proved interesting to school students because they portray adventures set in the Canadian North-West. Many of her books focus on aviation adventures, which ties in with the Alberta science curricula for grades four and six, involving aviation and space. Shirlee’s “day job” is Administrative Officer at the Aero Space Museum of Calgary.

Shirlee has been Writer in Residence at Medicine Hat and Calgary public libraries, and at several schools (gr. middle grades and junior high). She presents workshop sessions at numerous young writers’ conferences, and seasonally goes on reading tours to individual schools and libraries, showing how to find and write “our” stories.

Special Equipment:

Whiteboard or blackboard.

Book Sales:

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

Workshops

Creating Peculiar People, Places & Plots: Would you like to meet the Wolf-Man? Accompany bush-pilot Jimmy "Midnight" Anderson in his Super Cub, over the Alaska Highway and into the mysterious Valley of Lost Planes? Travel by horseback through the wilderness of northern British Columbia to discover the legends of The Two Mountains That Sit Together? Come to know Sherri and Sam, who get into more trouble than they can handle in the big city malls (City Pictures)? Sit behind the wheel of a hotrod car (Fastback Beach)? These characters and stories are Matheson’s creations. She will show how you, too, can create people, places and plots that stay in readers’ minds long after the story is read.

The workshops combine samples from her work as well as that of other authors – including the creators of comic-book heroes and villains. We'll take a look at characters from the classics as well as from new best-sellers, with open discussions and lots of class participation in selected exercises. We will learn how to interview people to gain insight into others’ lives and talents, and then write stories that are worthwhile, true . . . and entertaining.

Special Equipment:

Whiteboard or blackboard.

Book Sales:

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

Biography

Shirlee Smith Matheson is the author of (soon to be) 15 published books, as well as award-winning short stories and articles. Her publications include middle-reader and young-adult fiction. Prairie Pictures, City Pictures and Fastback Beach are contemporary novels, while Flying Ghosts, The Gambler's Daughter and Keeper of the Mountains are Canadian historical novels based on factual stories.

Shirlee’s seven non-fiction books chronicle events that take place in Canada’s North, and include many aviation adventures. Lost: True Stories of Canadian Aviation Tragedies was released in 2005. Two new books of aviation stories are being published in 2007-2008: Maverick in the Sky: The Aerial Adventures of WWI Flying Ace Freddie McCall and Strange Flights and Flyers.

Shirlee is an administrator for the Aero Space Museum of Calgary. She has taught writing courses and workshops for both young people and adults, has won a number of writing awards, and travels widely to do research, and give readings from her books.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:
I have given talks on various subjects relating to writing, or to the subjects – people, places, plots – described in my books. Please contact me via email (shirlee@telusplanet.net) to discuss your needs.