Campbell, Curtis (Toronto, ON)

White Pine 2024 Nominee.

White Raven Selection Winner

Dora Mavor Moore Award, Best New Play Nominee.

Second City Award For Outstanding Comedy Winner.

Publishing Triangle Nominee

Booking Rates: $250 for one session, $200 for any additional sessions. A travel fee of $0.50/km if outside Toronto. Virtual visit rates negotiable.

Curtis Campbell is a novelist and playwright based out of Toronto. His novels include Dragging Mason County and the upcoming Lying, Stealing, and Other Ways to Save the Planet.

Workshops and Presentations

Writing Character Voice

A workshop on writing in the first person, how to develop the voice of your character, how to begin developing your writing style, and how you can begin putting this on the page! We will write and share our work.

Dialogue

A practical workshop focussed on how dialogue works for both novels and plays, its use to convey character and plot, and how to develop dialogue consistent with the tone and style of the piece you are writing. We will write and share work for discussion.

Writing For Your Audience

A common hurdle for any writer, new or seasoned, is just getting their project started. But I’ve always found that a simple solution is to address the needs of your intended audience, and the needs of the form. Are you writing a book, a play, a presentation?

In this workshop we’ll discuss what your audience needs, and how those needs can get your writing off to the races.

Writing About Ourselves

A workshop based around writing about yourself! In memoir, journal, fiction and nonfiction. I believe that everyone is a writer. People often say that they have nothing to write about, but we all have the ability to write about ourselves. This workshop is about putting yourself on the page using memory, identity, geography, imagination and site-specific practices to discover that you’re a writer too.

Playwriting

I am a working playwright and have ten years of experience creating plays in both the independent and professional worlds. This workshop will explore the basics of playwriting and teach students about the process of scene creation by having them write one of their own.

LGBTQ+ Student Group Visit

A facilitated discussion with your school’s LGBTQ+ student group to talk activism and advocacy as a young person, contemporary issues facing queer Canadians, and how they can effect change in their own school.

Book Banning And You!

An informative presentation and facilitated discussion. Ontario student’s intellectual freedoms and human rights are becoming increasingly threatened by the rising wave of book bannings. Where does this come from, and how can they begin to combat this attack on their rights?

All Aboard The Allyship!

As anti-2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation continues to spread, we can all benefit from an open discussion about the rapidly evolving nature of homophobia and transphobia in the internet age. This presentation and discussion presents common sense approaches to being an effective ally to the 2SLGBTQIA+ members of your community.

Dragging Mason County

Discussion of the White Pine nominated novel, and the issues explored within. Discussion topics include LGBTQIA+ youth issues, friendship and chosen family, allyship, homophobia and transphobia, theatre and drag, social media, and gender expression. For any class or club who have read the book.

Talk To An Author and Playwright

An engaging Q+A about the literary and theatre industries with a particular interest in discussing how students can begin developing, or continue developing their own artistic practice.

These workshops can be performed in a single classroom, or with merged classrooms.

The ideal group for writing workshops would be smaller, but I can make larger groups work just as well if there are a few staff members present.

A microphone would be great to have if we are meeting in a gym or cafeteria.

Workshops will always change by school and group, so I’m happy to customize and adjust based on your needs.

Contact Curtis to book a visit:

Bow, Erin (Kitchener, ON)

Writers’ Union Member. $250 virtual visit or $400 in-person, plus travel. $700 for a day with two visits (two schools can share). Travel costs waived in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, and the townships.

Erin writes YA science fiction and fantasy middle grade books. With multiple awards, she’s considered one of Canada’s rising stars: Quill and Quire calls her “a new master,” and the CBC says she’s “so close to YA superstardom she can probably taste it.” As a presenter she’s down-to-earth and funny, working to give students real answers and emotional honesty.

CCBC Book Awards: TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award nominee

“I’ve had many novelists visit my classes over the years, but I can honestly say I’ve never seen one connect so well with a teenaged audience. —A.J. Blauer, Acting Head of Literary Arts, Canterbury High School (Ottawa, Ontario)

Free Virtual Visits!
I do free 10-15 minute virtual visits with classes or clubs who are reading one of my books. There’s no presentation, so I’m counting on the teacher or moderator to run a short, informal conversation or a Q&A

Audience: Any small group

Timing: 10 to 15 minutes

Presentation-style School Visits

For upper elementary and middle schools: How to Fail

A funny presentation on how I became an author by failing every step of the way. (Step one: don’t have a dream.)

I’ll give your students a peek behind the scenes of my creative process — research, writing, editing, and more — but the heart of the presentation is grit, growth, and being a little easier on yourself.

Audience: Targeted at grades 5 – 9. Single classes or whole-school gatherings.

Timing: Adaptable to your timetable, but generally 30-40 minutes plus a Q&A, for a total of 45-60 minutes.

For middle schools, high schools: How to Fall off a Roof

This presentation uses that answer — and other insights from modern neuroscience — to introduce new ways to think about how details and pacing change the emotional intensity of a scene.

Audience: Targetted at grades 7 – 12, writers’ craft classes, university classes, writers’ master classes. Works as a workshop for single classes, but can also be run as a presentation for a gym-ful.

Timing: Adaptable to your timetable, but generally 45-60 minutes plus a Q&A, for a total of 60-90 minutes.

For upper elementary and middle schools: Sort of Simon

Simon Sort of Says is my newest middle grade book.

This presentation takes your readers behind the scenes of writing this book — and creativity generally — starting from “where do your get your ideas” and covering everything from an ordinary writing day to the big phone call day where something amazing happens.

This presentation works for both classes who have read or are reading Simon, and for classes who are just curious about books, writing, and creativity.

Content note: there is a school shooting in the backstory — not on the page — of Simon Sort of Says. That comes up in the backstory — not at the heart — of this presentation.

Audience: Targetted at grades 5 – 9. Single classes or whole-school gatherings.

Timing: Adaptable to your timetable, but generally 30-40 minutes plus a Q&A, for a total of 45-60 minutes.

Workshops

Writing Workshop: How to Walk Across a Room

This highly interactive, on-your-feet workshop draws on improv exercises and group brainstorming to help students make characters come to life on the page.

This workshop is at its absolute best as a series of short workshops and writing exercises that build on each other over the course of several writing days. Some of these can be teacher-run — I have sharable lesson plans. Contact me if you’re interested.

Audience: Targeted at grades 7 – 12, writers’ craft classes, university classes, writers’ master classes. Best for single classes.

Timing: Adaptable to your timetable, but generally 45-60 minutes plus a Q&A, for a total of 60-90 minutes.

Writing Workshop: How to Fall off a Roof

Neuroscientists have a question: when you’re falling to your death, does time really slow down? Being scientists, they’ve tested this by dropping volunteers from a great height. Any guesses on what they learned?

This workshop uses that answer — and other insights from modern neuroscience — to introduce new ways to think about how details and pacing change the emotional intensity of a scene.

Jam-packed with weird science and fun examples, this workshop is the least interactive one I do, and can also be a presentation to a gym-ful.

Audience: Targetted at grades 7 – 12, writers’ craft classes, university classes, writers’ master classes. Works as a workshop for single classes, but can also be run as a presentation for a gym-ful.

Timing: Adaptable to your timetable, but generally 45-60 minutes plus a Q&A, for a total of 60-90 minutes.

Writer in Residence options

Want to take it up a notch? These workshops add together to create a great program for a writer in residence. Think every day for a week, or twice a month for a semester, or even more.

This is my absolute favourite thing to do — it’s a game changer for me, for the kids, and for the teachers I work with.

Contact Erin to book a visit.

Krossing, Karen (Toronto, ON)

Writers’ Union Member. YA and MG fiction. Picture books (nonfiction and fiction). K to 12. Karen’s rate is $250 plus HST for one session, $450 for two, $675 for three, $900 for a full day (4 sessions). Mileage within Toronto may be waived. A virtual visit is $150 plus HST.

Karen Krossing is the author of many books for kids and teens, including picture books My Street Remembers, One Tiny Bubble, and Sour Cakes, and novels Monster vs. Boy, Punch Like a Girl, and Bog. She won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Canada in 2015 and 2023 and has been a finalist for the Ontario Library Association White Pine Award and the Joan F. Kaywell Books Save Lives Award, among other honours. Karen has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she teaches writing at Whale Rock Workshops and the Humber School for Writers. She loves meeting readers and writers of all ages.