Virginia Frances Schwartz

Readings

1. THE WRITING PROCESS
Since my latest book, 4 Kids in 5E & 1 Crazy Year (Scholastic Canada, 2007) is all about my time spent writing with elementary children, I like to talk about how writers operate, where they get their ideas from, how they observe the world, and use a Writer’s Notebook to record those entries in. This includes a reading from the book, the backstory to writing it, an exercise in generating ideas like “Reading My Day”, and/or a Storytelling Circle where true stories are traded “off the cuff” about ourselves. For children and adults. Bring your writer’s notebooks.

2. BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Talk will begin with slavery books, discussing how voices and images were developed in Send One Angel Down and If I Just Had Two Wings, my two historical fiction novels about slavery. These books address different aspects of slavery: one is daily life on a Southern plantation and the other is a trip on the Underground Railroad to Canada. These books are geared to Grade 4–8 curriculum.

3. THE PROCESS OF WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION
with a focus on using primary and secondary sources to develop an idea for historical fiction. Talk will begin with slavery books, discussing how voices, images, and setting were developed in Send One Angel Down, If I Just Had Two Wings but will also include the topics of Canadian immigration and use of family stories to create Messenger, and explore the myths and culture of Native American history, Initiation.

Special Equipment:

Microphone.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed, if requested. Or, I can arrange with my publisher to send the books.

Workshops

1. THE WRITING PROCESS
Since my latest book, 4 Kids in 5E & 1 Crazy Year (Scholastic Canada, 2007) is all about my time spent writing with elementary children, I like to talk about how writers operate, where they get their ideas from, how they observe the world, and use a Writer’s Notebook to record those entries in. This includes a reading from the book, the backstory to writing it, an exercise in generating ideas like “Reading My Day”, and/or a Storytelling Circle where true stories are traded “off the cuff” about ourselves. For children and adults. Bring your writer’s notebooks.

2. BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Talk will begin with slavery books, discussing how voices and images were developed in Send One Angel Down and If I Just Had Two Wings, my two historical fiction novels about slavery. These books address different aspects of slavery: one is daily life on a Southern plantation and the other is a trip on the Underground Railroad to Canada. These books are geared to Grade 4–8 curriculum.

3. THE PROCESS OF WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION
with a focus on using primary and secondary sources to develop an idea for historical fiction. Talk will begin with slavery books, discussing how voices, images, and setting were developed in Send One Angel Down, If I Just Had Two Wings but will also include the topics of Canadian immigration and use of family stories to create Messenger, and explore the myths and culture of Native American history, Initiation.

Special Equipment:

Microphone.

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed, if requested. Or, I can arrange with my publisher to send the books.

Biography

Virginia was born in Stoney Creek, Ontario in 1950 in "the heart of the fruit belt". Most of her early years were spent hanging upside down in cherry trees, daydreaming, reading, and swinging on the swing set so hard that it often toppled. This place was a farm of flat land with blossoming fruit trees, chickens, 5 regular cats and one toilet trained cat, and a german shephard, all within a short walk to a library and Lake Ontario. She thought where she lived was a kind of heaven. All of that experience helped her later do what she dreamed of – become a writer.
This took a while.

The writer wanted to see the world, and saw so much of it that it took her a long time to finish college where she majored in – what else – English Literature, at Wilfrid Laurier University and an MS at Pace U. in NY. Her trips landed her in the US where she met and married a teacher when she was 26. No one was paying writers at the time but they were paying teachers (a little) so she became one. After years teaching in the fourth and fifth grade classrooms, and being trained in The Writing Process at Columbia University in NYC, she got very, very lucky! Her school became a Magnet School with a theme of Writing & Publishing. She was appointed the Staff Developer of the Publishing Center which meant she worked to inspire everyone, adults, kids, parents, teacher’s aides, and even the principal, to get their writer’s notebooks out and write their stories down. It was in that creative mileu that a surprising thing happened. Virginia sat down with her students and couldn’t stop writing herself. When her first book was published, she carried it everywhere, to school, for trips in the car, and kept it beside her pillow.

After 22 years teaching, Virginia became a full time writer. She still has a secret passion to teach writers so now she teaches adults at UCLA's Creative Writing program online. And she is always dreaming of what her characters will do next and where they will take her. She still hangs upside down, only now it’s called yoga.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:

HOW TO DEVELOP A WRITING PRACTICE: For adults interested in writing with some focus on writing for children. This presentation is based on my online teaching at UCLA where I teach a course that discusses the daily habits of a writer. It includes use of a writer’s notebook, daily writing, writer’s resources, brainstorming in a Story Circle, writer’s tricks, developing a practice, finding “seed” stories.