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A podcast dedicated to demystifying the art and business of school author visits for authors, illustrators, educators, librarians, parents, and booksellers.

Hosts: Author, Bonnie Clark and Author-illustrator, Shanda McCloskey

Record a book review here! Use this handy guide if you'd like!

Produced by Ben McCloskey • Sponsored by AuthorVisitCentral.com

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  2. 23. Level Up Your Author Visit Game (with Children's STEM/STEAM Author Jennifer Swanson)

23. Level Up Your Author Visit Game (with Children's STEM/STEAM Author Jennifer Swanson)

Nov 17, 2022

Our topic today is all about leveling up your author visit game with our special guest, children's STEM/STEAM author Jennifer Swanson! 

Today we get to dive into the world of Jennifer Swanson! If you don’t already know of her, she is an award-winning author of over 40 nonfiction books for children, mostly about science and technology. Jennifer’s love of STEM began when she started a science club in her garage at the age of 7. And not only that, but we consider her a school visit champion!

During the talk, we asked Jennifer these questions…

  • Jennifer, in your opinion what’s the difference between a good school visit and a really GREAT one?

  • How do you go about engaging kids and keeping their attention? And further, how do you get them excited?

  • A lot of authors write and present about STEM subjects, but what makes YOURS extra special?

  • We recently had a request to talk about the tech we use during school visits. And we hope to dedicate a whole episode to this soon, but while we have you here what tech do you use for presenting, Jennifer?

  • Tell us about the non-fiction writing workshops that you offer!

  • I see that 3 sessions is your full day. How did you come to that number? (I recently raised my prices, but I added a fourth session to my full day, and it’s intense! But I also feel like a wimp compared to what teachers are doing each day with students. I think I’ll go back to 3 sessions a day next school year.)

  • Have you ever had a school visit disaster? Do tell!

  • How do you go about getting school visit gigs? Do you handle everything on your own or do you use a booking agency?

  • What’s one thing you’ve learned over the course of doing school visits? Or what’s your main advice you have for other authors to up their school visit game?

 

Thanks for joining us, Jennifer! That wraps up our 23rd episode about leveling up your author visit game with Jennifer Swanson! 

To know more about Jennifer Swanson's author visits, books, etc: https://jenniferswansonbooks.com/

Jennifer's podcast: https://solveitforkids.com/

 

Kid book review by: Harvey M.

This podcast is sponsored by AuthorVisitCentral.com and produced by Ben McCloskey. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate-and-review us on Apple Podcasts! And don’t forget your kid can record a book review (for us to play on a future episode) from the link on AuthorVisitPodcast.com.

What did you think about this episode with Jennifer? Let us know in the episode comments on AuthorVisitPodcast.com or tweet us @authorvisitcen. 

Thanks for listening!

 

Resources and books mentioned in this episode (with affiliate links that help support this podcast):