Dave Shelton

Awards

• Branford Boase Award
• Carnegie medal
• Costa prize
• Greenaway medal
• Leeds Graphic Novel Award

Organisations

• Society of Authors member

Details

I'm an author, illustrator, comic-maker and occasionally a cover designer for books for children ranging from middle grade to young adult. With a decade's experience of visits to schools, libraries, colleges and festivals I very much enjoy my days of talking, running workshops, and meeting readers of all ages.

My usual fee is £400 plus travel expenses (from Suffolk) and any necessary accommodation. I do my best to keep expenses to a minimum and I'm happy to provide a rough estimate in advance.

Normally I prefer to limit the day to three main sessions of one hour each, but I'm happy to discuss your particular requirements, and I'm happy to add, say, a short assembly, an informal meet and greet and/or a signing session if required.

The most usual sessions I offer are: 

A talk about my work, and how I came to be a writer at all having started out as purely an illustrator. Usually this is 45 minutes long plus 15 minutes Q&A, but content and length can be tailored to suit the audience of any particular session. Audience can be any size and any age from 5 up. I show accompanying illustrations via a Powerpoint file brought on a USB drive, so the means to display this (laptop, projector, screen) should be provided by the host.

Cartooning workshops. These usually task the pupils with creating their own double act of comic strip characters and then (at least starting) drawing their own comic story. Again, usually an hour, but can be shorter. Suitable for all ages and groups of up to 30. I usually give a brief introduction using a Powerpoint if possible, though this is not absolutely essential, and end by looking at and commenting on some of the work produced (if available, a visualiser is very helpful for this).

Writing workshops. These are best suited to older classes. Ideally they run for an hour for a group of 24 or fewer, but shorter sessions and larger groups can also be accommodated. Most usually students are given a task relating to one of my own books, e.g. writing a ghost story, or coming up with a pair of characters and imagining them trapped together in an enclosed space. 

Improvised storytelling sessions, in which I improvise and illustrate (rapidly and sometimes embarrassingly badly) a story based on suggestions from the audience. This is a good fun option for younger classes but can be a bit raucous. Works best if there’s a visualiser I can use, so I can draw small and the image is projected on a screen big enough for all to see, but a flip chart is a workable alternative.

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