Ted Staunton

Readings

Readings are based on the theme “Where Stories Come From and How They Become Books”.

For Primary grade groups I do a couple of my picture books, an imagining activity that allows for movement, a Q&A show and tell time that stresses the writing process with sketches and messy manuscripts, and some music with my guitar or banjo.

For Junior grades and up I begin with anecdotal material from a variety of sources to demonstrate how ideas and incidents from everyday life become the basis for fiction. Depending on the group I may offer some material for the audience to make suggestions about. This is followed by a reading or readings that show how I used some of the things talked about. The session is concluded with Q&A, show & tell that once again stresses the writing process, and often with some music.

The pace is generally brisk and the tone humorous

Special Equipment:

n/a

Book Sales:

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

Workshops

Workshops can be built around many themes and exercises including story planning and story boarding, working from real life, character, voice and point of view, showing not telling, and word play.

In schools I am frequently asked to present a 5 part series (once a week for 5 weeks) in which each student creates their own picture book. This works best with junior grades and up, though variant sessions are available for primaries. During my weekly visit I am at the school for the full day and can work with up to four different classes.

Special Equipment:

n/a

Book Sales:

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

Biography

Ted Staunton was born very young and is now older. His first book, Puddleman, a picture book, was about mud. His last book, Sounding Off, a novel with teens in high school was more about girls. In between he’s written all kinds of things, including books about Canadian history. He tries to make them funny.

Ted and his family live in Port Hope, ON, where he likes to play music, run, read, and spy on everyone so he can find things to put in his books. His favourite food is anything someone else cooks.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:
Content of these presentations varies to meet the needs of the group. Often I cover topics such as boys and reading, reading and the family, the writing process, and demonstrations of my approach to student writing workshops.