[Tasl] Authors Who Skype with Book Clubs

[mlgav]

These authors are willing to participate in
20-minute Skype visits free of charge. (Many also offer more in-depth
virtual visits for a fee.)


Met Any Good Authors Lately? Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here's a list of those who do it for free)http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6673572.html


Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here’s a list of those who do this for free)
By Kate Messner -- School Library Journal, 8/1/2009
Also in this article:Before your book club meeting:
On the day of your book club meeting:
Authors Who Skype with Book Clubs  
Illustration by Marc Rosenthal. 
At 7:25 am on the last day of school, five avid fifth-grade readers
hustle into the library of Chamberlin School in South Burlington, VT.
They shrug off backpacks and pull out advance copies of The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z,
my middle-grade novel about a Vermont girl who’s convinced her school
leaf collection project is ruining her life. They crowd around a PC
webcam, ready to talk books. 
On the opposite shore of Lake Champlain, I fire up my MacBook in my
own classroom. In half an hour, my seventh graders will arrive for
homeroom, but, first, I’m going to visit with these fifth graders from
across the lake. I launch Skype, and when the computerized ring tone sounds at exactly 7:30, I click on the phone icon to answer.
“Good morning, Kate!” says Chamberlin’s librarian, Cally Flickinger.
She introduces the students, who start off quietly, a little wary of
this newfangled sort of author visit. But soon they’re taking turns
sharing their favorite characters and we forget the computers that
connect us. It feels like we’re all in the same room, and the questions
fly across the miles.
“What happened to Bianca after the book ended? Did she ever become nicer?”
“Are you going to write a sequel?”
The video connection allows for some show and tell. I hold up the
leaf collection from my school that sparked the idea for the book. The
students also get a sneak peak at the outline I’m working on for my new
project, a middle-grade mystery. I love the way they talk not just to
me but to one another, building on ideas like readers do in any book
club discussion.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

http://www.marykay.com/marygavlik

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