Heather lives with her family on an old homestead on the edge of town overlooking Lake Superior. She studied music in University and paid for her education working as a busker and jazz singer. Upon graduation she launched her first career as a singer/songwriter. It kept her on the road for up to two hundred days a year and saw the release of six albums. In 2002 she left Montreal (where she had lived for a dozen years) and moved to Thunder Bay to co-host CBC radio's regional daily current affairs program. She won the RTNDA Dave Rogers award twice while at CBC Thunder Bay. In 2008 while on maternity leave her first book was published: Kiss Me! (I’m a Prince!). Then by vote of hundreds of thousands of Ontario kids it was named a 2012 Blue Spruce honour book - which was fabulous. Since then Heather has visited many dozens of schools across Canada talking about writing and leading workshops. She continues to write both music and prose, and has a one-woman weekly podcast Something Different This Way Comes (as well as a day-job as a certified financial planner).
The story of idea, research, drafts and review, editing, publication and printing. Lots of fascinating facts about frogs with puppets, songs and interactive activities. Illustrates the journey and achievability from dreams to accomplishments, the power of unplugged time to flesh out ideas and the power of science to inspire imagination and help spot the wonder all around us.
Exercises and examples to broaden writers tool-box of idea-generators, editing-options, framework and focus. Drawing on and contrasting the disciplines of writing for radio documentaries, narrative song, illustrated children's literature, and performed storytelling. For shorter workshops a lyric is composed by the group. For longer workshops participants create and edit several short pieces and have the opportunity to share them. I share my personal journey to publication and mediate a discussion of publication options if welcome. Workshop tailored to goals of host and participants.
See performance and workshop descriptions above - tailored to suit school goals and groups. Activity sheets for Kiss Me! (I'm a Prince!) can be provided before or after visit as added value.
