School Visits and Workshops
I’m always happy to do events in person or online.
My talks and workshops reflect my background as an engineer, scientist, and technical communicator. They are participatory, light-hearted, rooted in STEM knowledge, and packed with technical facts that will inspire children and teenagers to learn more about neuroscience, the deep ocean, writing, and science in general.
The Girl Who Broke The Sea is aimed at 11+ years, and Find Me After is aimed at 14+. My talks can be adapted for groups anywhere in the 11-15 age range.
I am also comfortable giving more in-depth talks to adult reading or writing groups and I can combine or adapt the outlines below to suit particular needs. Just let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll see if we can make it work!
Use the Contact form if you are interested in arranging a visit or online session.
Author Event:
Find Me After (45 mins)
30 mins presentation and reading + 15 mins Q&A
Find Me After is set in a sinister otherworld called the Stillness where the not-quite-dead fight for survival.
In this event I talk about how my scientific background influences my writing and the fascinating neuroscience that inspired Find Me After.
Through fun and surprising cognitive illusions, I introduce students to mind-blowing new research into consciousness and our perception of reality.
I also talk about the power of personal stories to inspire the writing process and how my own epilepsy shaped the world of the Stillness and its main character.
Author Event:
Exploring The Abyssal Plains (45 mins)
30 mins presentation and reading + 15 mins Q&A
Explore the setting of my book through video clips and interactive discussion. The Abyssal Plains play a crucial role in our environment, sequestering between 25 and 50% of the carbon dioxide we put into our atmosphere. But they are also the subject of intense scrutiny as a potential source of the metals we will need if we are to move to a carbon neutral economy.
Together, we explore the technical challenges and the science of the deep-sea, explode myths about the deep-sea as a threatening place of fang-toothed “aliens”, and discuss how science can help us balance the potential, and potential risks, of deep-sea mining.
Main theme: The oceanographers I consulted as part of researching this book “discover new animals every time they go down”. The science of the deep-sea is still young and the next “Darwin of the Sea” might be sitting in this classroom.
Writing Workshop:
759 Days (1 hour 30 mins)
30 mins presentation and reading + 3x 15 min exercises + 15 mins Q&A
What do writers actually do? How do we build believable worlds and characters?
Framed around my background as a physicist, engineer, and novelist, I describe my journey into writing and give the class a taste of what writing a novel really looks like. I love numbers, and I have an eclectic array of stats and facts (including a few charts and graphs!) drawn from my edit history to demonstrate the writing process.
