Elizabeth Rusch at the Wilsonville Public Library on Sunday, June 8th

Northwest Author Series Presents: Children’s Author Elizabeth Rusch at the Wilsonville Public Library on Sunday, June 8th

Whether you love to read or wish to write children’s books, you’ll enjoy this two-hour presentation by Elizabeth Rusch on writing children’s books on Sunday, June 8th from 3:00-5:00 p.m. For just five dollars at the door, in the Oak Room at the Wilsonville Public Library, you’ll receive two hours of insights from an award-winning children’s author, do a group exercise with the author and have a chance to win two great door prizes from Writer’s Digest Books. Wilsonville author, Christina Katz will host.

This month’s topic is: Listen to the Children

How I learned to write for children by listening to them and how you can, too.

Through her experience moving from writing for adults to writing for children, award-winning author, Elizabeth Rusch shows how to get meaningful feedback from children on your board books, picture books, and novels. Learn how to read aloud to toddlers and read their body language, how to nudge elementary-aged kids to do a meaningful mark-up, and how to start a fruitful dialogue with older kids about your work.

Elizabeth Rusch’s first children’ book, Generation Fix, was a Smithsonian magazine Notable Children’s Book and a finalist for the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award and the Oregon Book Award. She has four more children’s books coming out this year: Will It Blow?: Become a Volcano Detective at Mount St. Helens (Sasquatch, 2007), A Day with No Crayons (Rising Moon, 2007), The Planet Hunter: The story behind what happened to Pluto (Rising Moon, 2007), and Girl’s Tennis: Conquering the Court (Capstone Press, 2007).

As an award-winning freelance writer and former managing editor of Teacher magazine, editor-in-chief of PointsBeyond.com, and contributing editor to Child and Fit Pregnancy, Rusch has published more than 100 articles in numerous national magazines for children and adults. Her publishing credits include Muse, Read, American Girl, Harper’s, Mother Jones, Parenting, and Backpacker, among many others.

Her literary awards include the Kay Snow Literary Award, a Maggie Award, and an Oregon Literary Fellowship, among others. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two children.

This event is part of an ongoing series, the Northwest Author Series, created by Christina Katz and sponsored by Wilsonville Arts & Culture Council, the Wilsonville Public Library and the Friends of the Wilsonville Public Library.

This event concludes the series for the 07/08 season. The Northwest Author Series will resume in September with a how-to theme planned for 08/09.

Susan Fletcher Speaks on Going Beyond Imagination: Writing Alphabet of Dreams

Susan Fletcher Speaks on May 18th at the Wilsonville Library

Topic: Going Beyond Imagination: Writing Alphabet of Dreams

From 3-5 p.m. at the Wilsonville Public Library In the Oak Room. Cost is five dollars at the door.

Susan will tell of her 5-year odyssey to write Alphabet of Dreams—her YA novel about a boy who has prophetic dreams, the teenage sister who tries to protect him, and a suspense-filled camel caravan journey across ancient Persia.  She’ll show pictures of the journey she took to Iran to research the book, and tell how her travels took her to places beyond what she was capable of imagining beforehand: to a picnic with a Kurdish family near the Iraqi border; to a caravanserai on the old Silk Road; to an ancient Persian village; to a camel trek in the desert, and more.  For the writers and aspiring writers in the audience, Susan will reflect on using a sense of place as inspiration for fiction.

Susan Fletcher is the author of nine books for young readers, including The Dragon Chronicles Series (Dragon’s Milk, Flight of the Dragon Kyn, Sign of the Dove); Alphabet of Dreams, Shadow Spinner; Walk Across the Sea, and Dadblamed, Union Army Cow. She has received two Oregon Book Awards and the Willamette Writers’ Distinguished Writer Award. Some other honors her books have received: American Library Association Notable Books for Young Readers; American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults; Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon; and School Library Journal Best Books. Susan has an M.A. in English from the University of Michigan.  She has taught in the M.F.A. in Writing for Children program at Vermont College.

Writer’s Digest Books has been kind enough to provide door prizes for the event, which attracts writers and readers across the genres. Everyone who attends will be entered to win two out of three of the following:

FREE – Subscription to Writer’s Digest Magazine for one year
FREE – Subscription to Writersmarket.com for one year
$25 – Value to purchase Writer’s Digest Books!