School Visits

What Do You Get?

I will always try to tailor my visit to fit the particular needs
of your school/college: creative writing workshops, readings
and/or performances, author talks with question and
answer sessions. I am flexible; I can work with large groups
- a whole year or entire school, or do more concentrated
work with smaller groups. I can fill a whole day, or provide
shorter sessions. Whatever suits you and your school.

Most schools want an author to talk and give a reading
either to individual years or a couple of years at once.
Sometimes I'm asked to do something for the whole school
in assembly and then work with smaller groups individually.

For creative writing workshops, I ask to work with smaller
groups, usually no more than a class. Generally this works
best if we have at least a couple of lessons together.
I've done longer - up to two days with follow up work.

Readers of my books are usually from Yrs 3 - 9. And most
of the work I do is with young people from this age range.
However, I'm happy to include younger children in the
`author talk' type sessions if they're part of a big group
that includes the years above. And I have done workshops
with older secondary students too. I am always open to
suggestions.

Over the years I have notched up considerable experience
of writing for and working in TV drama. Recently I ran some
very successful workshops with year 11s & 12s on story-
lining and writing for soaps.

Bespoke:
Tell me your particular needs - curriculum related
or otherwise - and I will, wherever possible, attempt
to accommodate. If in doubt, try me.

Charges:
To find out how much a workshop or author visit would cost
get in touch and let me know what you have in mind.
neilarksey@gmail.com

Contacts for publicity material:
Penguin: Adele Minchin or Ian Lamb: 020 7010 3000
Transworld: Naomi Cooper or Kate Giles: 020 8231 6800

Recent Literary Festival/Event Appearances:
Oxford, Hay On Wye, Swansea, Manchester, Birmingham,
Southampton, Cheltenham Writing Together, Lowdham,
Liverpool Writing On The Wall, The Northern Children's
Book Festival, Web Weavers Festival

I am a member of the steering committee for English
P.E.N's Readers and Writers Scheme - a programme
set up to provide writers and books for those schools
that want/need and author visit, but do not have the
resources to fund one themselves. If you are a school
that falls into this category, get in touch and we can
put your case to the committee.