Author Visits :: Karen King, Children's Writer ::

I love to talk encourage adults and children to write so am happy to visit libraries, schools and writing groups to talk about my work.

I also run story writing and storyboarding sessions for KS1&2 children, either half or full day.

Ideas for stories are everywhere and my aim is to encourage children to use their imagination and see the potential for stories in the world about them, to help them to flesh out their initial ideas into something tangible then guide them into transferring these thoughts onto paper. The sessions are usually a mixture of talking about writing, building up stories as a group then encouraging the children to write their own story. I prefer to work with one class at a time so I can gear the lesson for their age groups and skills, but am happy to talk about my work to larger, mixed groups.

Fees
I charge the Society of Authors recommended rates plus travel expenses and accomodation, if necessary. If you would like me to visit your school please email me or contact me using the feedback page.

Some Nice Comments

Thank you so much for visiting Greswold Primary School as part of our Literacy Week. We enjoyed your input and finding out more about what it is like to be an author. The children found it interesting and did some lovely writing as a result.
Thank you,

Heather Day,
Greswold Primary School

Thank you for an inspirational and fun morning of story making. The children certainly got into their space travellers and alien characters after listening to your stories. It is wonderful to see children picking up on story ideas and taking them in new directions.

The morning really helped to reinforce everything we have been teaching the children about characters, setting and plot.

Thank you,

Stuart Boydell
KES Pre-Prep

Karen visited our Key Stage 1 classes on the morning of World Book 2010 and the children were very excited about being able to meet a 'real author'! We had two storybox sessions where Karen planned a story with the children based around some toys from our 'toybox'. The children then eagerly wrote stories and drew pictures for Karen about the toy characters. All the children were very enthused by Karen's visit and have since enjoyed reading some of her story books we now have in our school. She engaged well with the children, and showed enthusiasm for their work and even diligently answered all their questions about life as an author! A great addition to our World Book Day activities.

Claire Hale, Class teacher
Manor Primary School, Sutton Coldfield

Karen visited us during the week of World Book Day.
She spent considerable time and thought in liaising with us beforehand. She differentiated her activities well for the YR-Y6 age range, and managed to make her activities relevant to her work eg. storyboarding with Y5&6, relating it to her picture strip fiction writing. With younger children she demonstarted how she builds a story and enabled them to have a go too. She related well to the children, enabling them to contribute ideas with confidence. The children felt she had given them some real pointers in improving their storywriting skills. We would invite her back to school.

Headteacher
St Mellion School, Cornwall

This is just to say that Karen King has taught extensive workshops in writing for children on the MA Professional Writing course at University College Falmouth over the past five years, and that our students have much appreciated the expert, sensitive and inspirational qualities of her teaching, which has helped give several of them the skills and confidence to develop children's projects of their own.

Karen also played an important part in a publishing project that we undertook last year in collaboration with the NSPCC. 'We Wish: Hopes and Dreams of Cornwall's Children' was a book of writing by children aged 7-11, selected by means of a competition that Karen co-judged with another author, and to which she contributed a jointly written introduction. The book has proved a great success and was described as 'a triumph' by former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo.

I'm sure that Karen will be a great asset to any institution for which she is working.

Senior Lecturer, MA Professor Writing
University College Falmouth, Cornwall