Book Your 2019-20 School Author Visit

Last week was a good week in the world of school author visits. I spent Friday with more than 400 students at West Buffalo Charter School for an awesome day talking reading and writing. After a school assembly to begin the day, we broke out for grade-level writing workshops. The students were some of the most engaged, creative and enthusiastic I've worked with, and they came up with some amazing characters, settings and plots during our workshop time together.

Students at West Buffalo Charter School hard at work on a group writing exercise during our writing workshop on February 8th.

It was also a busy week for bookings. While plenty of schools are still booking school author visits for this year (I booked a two-day visit to Elmira, New York in May last week) lots of schools are getting a jump on the 2019-20 school year. In the last ten days, I fielded calls or emails from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Florida inquiring about booking an author visit for next year. In most of these cases, the school just hosted their author event for this year, and they were getting a head start on their search for 2019-20. For a few schools, this is going to be the first author event they have hosted at their school. Either way, there are a few advantages for schools that book their 2019-20 visiting author early:

Availability: Like many author who do school visits, my schedule can get pretty hectic. I already have a few writing projects signed for next year that will tie up my calendar as well as the school visits I have already booked. The earlier you set-up next year's school author visit, the more options you will have for available dates to fit your busy school calendar.

Funding: How to pay for a school author visit can be challenging for some schools or districts. The earlier you book, the more time you have to arrange funding. Whether you are using grant money, PTA funding, or fundraising funds, the earlier you have your cost locked in, the easier planning will be. As a bonus, from now until the end of the school year, I am offering a voucher for $100 off any author visit for 2019-20. If you call/email to book any length visit for next year, I will automatically take $100 off of the cost as a thank you for reserving your dates early. If you need ideas on how to pay for your school author visit, check out my blog post here.

Content: I customize my author visits to each school. I have a format I like to use, but I also work with schools to make sure what I am focused on lines up with what they are working on. For example, I recently held a two-day school author visit and the students were focusing on writing personal narratives. I tailored a portion of my writing workshop to the topic, to insure my visit was enhancing the work they were already doing. The earlier you book your visit, the more time we have to plan the perfect days with your students.

To learn more about my programs, visit my website, www.mattchandlerwriting.com, shoot me an email, matt@mattchandlerwriting.com, or call 716-390-9203.