Available for virtual visits in: Saskatchewan and Alberta
Craft: Author, Middle-Grade Fiction
Genre: Picture Books
Target Audience: Junior Kindergarten to Grade 7
Cost for School and Public Presentation with CCBC subsidy: $200.00, plus applicable taxes
Workshop Information:
Middle Grade Novel Presentations
Author’s Journey – Grades 4-7 (60 minutes)
How do you go from writer to author? Learn the origin story of No Vacancy and all the steps from beginning to publication: from idea to first draft and revisions, to acquisition, editing and copy editing, cover design and book-on-the-shelf! Includes photos from the entire process and reading of a chapter from the book.
Revision, Revision, Revision! – Grades 4-7 (60 minutes)
What are the steps in going from first draft to finished story? Get an inside view on the author’s revisions of No Vacancy, both before and after acquisition by the publisher. Includes specific examples of revision strategies (using strong verbs; show, don’t tell; adding detail; use of outlines and calendars; eliminating writing quirks, etc) with photos of manuscript. Includes reading of a chapter of the book. This presentation works best if students have read the book, but not required.
Picture Book Presentations
Let’s Talk About Chocolate! – JK-Grade 2 (30 minutes)
Where does chocolate come from? Learn about where and how cacao beans grow and how they are turned into the chocolate we all love, followed by a reading On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue: How Milton Hershey Brought Chocolate to America.
How Do Picture Books Get Made? – Grades 1-3 (30 minutes); *can be combined with Let’s Talk About Chocolate for total of 60 minutes
Using On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue or City Beet, we’ll talk about how a picture book gets made, from idea to research, first draft to revision, illustration to printing, plus the various people involved in the process, including the writer and illustrator, editor, book designer, publicist and more. Includes a reading of either book and Q&A time.
Book List
No Vacancy, Groundwood Books, 2020
On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue: How Milton Hershey Brought Chocolate to America, illustrated by Steven Salerno, Clarion/HarperCollins December 2022
Afikomen, illustrated by Ya’ara Eshet, Groundwood Books, March 2023
City Beet, illustrated by Udayana Lugo, Sleeping Bear Books, March 2023
Biography
Tziporah Cohen was born and raised in New York, then spent eighteen years in Boston before landing in Toronto, where she lives with her husband, three kids, two cats, and one dog. She studied French and Theater Arts at Cornell University and went on to get an MD from Harvard Medical School. Twenty years later, she graduated with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Tziporah now splits her time between working as a psychiatrist in oncology/palliative care and writing, interspersed with mom duties, indoor rock climbing and dog walking. Her debut novel, No Vacancy (Groundwood Books, 2020), for middle grade readers, won a Sydney Taylor Honor, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, won the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s inaugural Jean Little First Novel Award, and was a finalist for the Forest of Reading, The Hackmatack, and the WIllow Awards. Her first picture book, On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue: How Milton Hershey Brought Chocolate to America, will be published in December 2022 by Clarion Books. Two additional picture books will be published in March 2023 (Afikomen, Groundwood Books; City Beet, Sleeping Bear Press)
