.png)
JESSICA VITALIS is an award-winning, Columbia MBA-wielding middle grade author with Greenwillow/HarperCollins. Her books have been translated into three languages, received multiple starred reviews, been designated as Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections, and appeared on “Best Book” lists for Kirkus and CCBC. Coyote Queen, won the Reading the West Book Award, the High Plains Literary Award, and the Women Writing the West 2024 WILLA Literary Award in Children’s Fiction and Non-Fiction. Her latest novel, Unsinkable Cayenne, is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Jessica has American and Canadian citizenship; she currently lives and writes in Ontario but speaks at schools, conferences, and festivals all over North America.
In this hands-on writing workshop, participants look at what makes characters come alive in readers’ hearts and minds and learn how to develop memorable characters using the author’s secret technique to show and not tell.
Using the building blocks of story, we’ll work through a flexible pre-writing strategy that provides authors with a framework to draft a novel without bogging them down or making the drafting process feel too prescriptive.
This presentation includes the inspiration behind the author's work, a short reading, stories of tenacity and perseverance related to the author’s unusual childhood and her 14 year journey to publication, how to find story ideas, and a peek at the revision process (including the most important item in her writer’s toolbox!). Q&A included.
