Susin Nielsen

Susin would love to plan a visit to your school or library.  Her rate is $250 plus HST per session, plus a $50 flat fee per session for travel and accommodation.

Susin is a member of The Writers' Union of Canada, and so schools wishing to invite her may be eligible for a travel and fee subsidy to offset the cost of her visit. Contact us for details of this program.

Susin Nielsen started out feeding cast and crew muffins and bologna sandwiches on the award-winning television series, Degrassi Junior High.  They hated her food (a fact that’s memorialized forever in a poem the cast wrote: “An ode to Susin, the Bran Muffin Queen, we eat them, we die, then we turn green”). Luckily for Susin, however, they saw a spark in a spec script she wrote. Susin went on to pen 16 episodes of Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High. She also got her first crack at novel writing when she was asked to write Shane, one of the books in the Degrassi series. She went on to write three more: Wheels, Snake and Melanie. She loved writing in book form, and vowed that one day she would write an original young adult novel. After she wrote for a lot more well-received TV series: Ready or Not, Madison, The Adventures of Shirley Holmes, Edgemont, Heartland and the animated series, What About Mimi and Braceface, to name a few – she finally made true on her vow, and wrote her first original young adult novel, Word Nerd.  

Here’s what people have to say so far:

Educators:

“Susin Nielsen visited our school yesterday and she was amazing!  She came with a wonderful power-point presentation, video recording and was very prepared.  Our students were totally engaged and entertained.  I actually had to keep the students back because they were all trying to get her autograph and talk to her after her presentation. This has never happened before and we’ve had many author visits.   I feel very fortunate, as I’m sure the students do, to have met her.”  Elizabeth Galli, Valley Park Middle School 

“She was very engaging and really pulled in the adult learners.  She was energetic and real.  The adult learners were interested from beginning to end.  She spoke about how Word Nerd came to be and also discussed a bit about her past.  Her presentation included photos from her past and she displayed the first book she ever wrote, which was from her school days.  The event ended with Susin giving away a copy of Word Nerd and autographing bookmarks for the learners.  We were thrilled with her visit.” Rachelle Gooden, Parliament Branch Library, Toronto, Ont.

Students:

Anna:  “I loved your presentation.  It was really helpful that you had a powerpoint, and it was cool to see the TV clips. I also liked how we got to act out the scene in Word Nerd.” 

Emmy:  “I liked that you engaged us all and treated us like real Grade sixes.”

Kira: “I like that your presentation was interactive. You were lots of fun.”

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Published Works

Young Adult Novels 

Word Nerd (Tundra) 2008

Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom (Tundra) Coming in August 2010  
 

Picture Books

Hank and Fergus (Orca) 2003

Mormor Moves In (Orca) 2004

The Magic Beads (Simply Read) 2007 

Awards and Nominations

Word Nerd 

Winner, 2010 Red Maple Award

Winner, 2010 Rocky Mountain Book Award

Winner, 2010 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award

Winner, Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year, Silver 2008 Juvenile Fiction

Nominee, 2010 Indigo Teen Read Awards, “Best Canadian Read” Category

Nominated for the 2010 Golden Oak Award

Nominated for the 2009 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award

Nominated for the 2011 Rhode Island Teen Book Award

Shortlisted for the 2009 Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award

Shortlisted for the 2009 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards

One of The Globe and Mail’s “Susan Perren’s Top 10 Children’s Books for ‘08”

Hank and Fergus

Winner, Mr. Christie’s Silver Seal Award 

Presentation Details

My presentation (“Books and Beyond”) explores writing both for the page and for the screen, because I also write for television. In a fun, interactive way, I talk to the students about how I got into writing; the differences in writing each genre; and the challenges and pleasures each one brings.

I show a clip from a TV show I’ve written, and later on in the presentation, we even do a bit of acting!  The overall message of my presentation is to instill a love of the written word, in any form.

Grades I will present to: 6 to 8  

Is this flexible? It can be, but teachers should be aware that there may be content that could be deemed inappropriate for younger children.   

Maximum number of students per session: 100

Venues I’m comfortable in: Classrooms and libraries.  No gyms, please.

Equipment and other requirements:  

• A projector/screen for my power point presentation (I bring my own Mac laptop).
• A TV/DVD player.
• A table and chair.
• Bottled water would be much appreciated.
• I do insist that a librarian or teacher be present throughout the presentation.