www.ruthexpress.com
Author visits
"Phenomenal!"
That's what one teacher exclaimed after our school visit.
We travel extensively teaching writing workshops.
We do an interactive and fun story-creation workshop program with students of any age -- it’s wildly entertaining and very educational.
With the audience we brainstorm a story all together, and then compose and illustrate the beginning of a story, right there on the spot.
Students always leave this program excited about writing and art and storytelling -- and teachers do, too.
"You're super magical!" - kindergarten boy, 2018
We WILL get your students excited about creating stories.
We'd love to visit your area.
Email Charlie, my husband and bookings manager
(and he's an author too!)
and he will put you on our calendar.
Author visit rates and details
SCHOOL VISITS
We have been all over the country for events and love to travel. We will travel anywhere.
Travel expenses: $ .50 per mile from our house to the school and back.
Meals are requested for schedules that require us to speak immediately before and after regular meal times.
Hotel required for early morning visits and also for long drives (2+ hours).
We live in Lansing, Michigan.
1 hour-long session
$475 plus travel expenses.
2 hour-long sessions in 1 day
$875 plus travel expenses (and lunch if we're there).
3 hour-long sessions in 1 day
$1135 plus travel expenses and lunch.
After school / nighttime session
With a daytime session, $175 plus dinner.
Without a daytime session, $475 plus travel expenses.
WE ASK YOU TO SUPPLY:
A chair, a table (6- or 8-foot is perfect), and a screen for our projector to show images onto.
Also please make sure all audience members have paper to draw on and pencils.
We recommend a spiral notebook or 4 to 6 sheets of copy paper. (Some children write and draw a LOT in our sessions.)
WE WILL BRING:
Our document camera and projector, our mic, props, and lots of creative ideas.
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LIBRARY EVENTS
Travel expenses include $.50 per mile from my house to the event and back.
1 hour-long session
$280 plus travel expenses.
2-hour workshop for aspiring author-illustrators and cartoonists
$425 plus travel expenses.
WE ASK YOU TO SUPPLY:
A chair, a table (6- or 8-foot is perfect), and a screen for our projector to show images onto.
Also please make sure all audience members have paper to draw on and pencils.
We recommend a few sheets of copy paper per person.
WE WILL BRING:
Our document camera and projector, our mic, props, and lots of creative ideas.
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BOOK SALES
We appreciate when a school or library holds a sale of my books.
To make it easy, contact Charlie.
He will walk you through all the details.
(We recommend Schuler Books, our local independent bookstore. They'll offer schools a discount. And they'll contact us so I can sign, personalize, and draw in each book.
We'll bring the books with us to your event or Schulers will ship them to you.
Or, choose your local bookstore and ask them for details.)
THANK YOU
for considering bringing us to your school or library.
It's been a few tricky years since things were routine.
We so appreciate being able to share storymaking with audiences again.
Questions? Charlie has the answers.
Email cjbarshaw523@aol.com
If I'd met an author as a child...
I wouldn't have been afraid
to start writing earlier
I'd have understood the
value of the revisions process.
I'd have felt more confident
with my creativity.
Author Visit Photo Gallery
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Meet Charlie, my school visit helper
Charlie Barshaw wrote stories for his Aunt Lillian when he was in grade school.
In high school, he joined the school newspaper, and in senior year became a featured humor writer. In college, he joined the student newspaper staff, and then published his own literary magazine.
Then, a long series of years where he read profusely but did not write a word.
Until he met Ruth McNally in East Lansing, where she drew on a paper napkin.
When he found that Ruth had the same birthday (May 23) and the same number of siblings (8) and the same number of Peggys (1), their fate was sealed, and they fell in love and got married.
Charlie helped develop ideas for Ruth’s long-running MSU comic “College Is…”
They collaborated to publish three issues of the parody paper, “The Stale News”.
He also wrote scripts for two other comic collaborations, “Home Work” and
“Planets Collide.”
While he wrote for local newspapers and magazines, it wasn’t until he lost his job
in 2009 that Ruth encouraged him to write for kids and help with her growing school visit enterprise.
Since then, he’s had three short stories published with Amazon Rapids, and many articles published in The Mitten blog (where he’s now an editor).
The Mitten promotes the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in Michigan
(SCBWI-MI).
He’s also a member of the Advisory Committee for SCBWI-MI, planning
conferences, lining up speakers and arranging critiques.
He’s got five middle grade or young adult novels in various stages of completion. He
belongs to three critique groups, and has earned a red belt in the Korean martial art of Hapkido.