A Speaker For All Ages

Whether I’m talking to a single class or full gym of grade 4-12ers, or presenting a keynote speech at a conference, I always bring my three key principals of presentations with me: inform, entertain, and inspire. If we can laugh, we can learn, and if we laugh, we can get around the obstacles that have stopped us from achieving our goals and dreams.

I first built my public speaking side in the technology world, as a solution architect (aka software architect) with strong ties to Microsoft. One day, when working for Microsoft, I heard about an opportunity that absolutely terrified me. Someone was looking for a volunteer to do a cross-Canada speaking tour. It would be 7 cities in 6 days, and the speaker would have to talk for 3 hours per city with the headline speaker talking for one. I decided to step forward and do it.

Until then, the biggest audience I’d ever spoken to was 30 people. After that, it was 1200. I learned a lot about myself, about public speaker, and learned that it was something that had to remain a part of my professional life (and it did). When I shifted my focus from the technical world to the literary, I did the same type of jumping in, head first. Since that time, I’ve spoke at numerous conferences, associations, many schools, and on podcasts, as a speaker and as a panelist.

If you’d like to have me present, fill in this form.

Sample School Talk

In person or via Skype/Facetime/Zoom

My aim with students is to help them unlock their ideas and find ways to express themselves. For those that feel all locked up inside, this gives them tools and ideas for finding their voice. For students who are prolific writers, it helps them understand what are some of the things I take into account as a professional author.

As a dyslexic author, and as a former software architect, I have a number of viewpoints and approaches to share with them that are as valid for writing a science report, as writing a story, or writing a proposal for a $100 Million project.

These talks always aim to be fun, funny, and informative, and to leave the kids inspired. I’ve had a lot of success giving these talks in person as well as via Skype.

Sample Talk 1

Unlock Your Writing Soul

This talk is the heart of what’s mentioned above, and focuses on helping kids find ways for getting their ideas to the page. Being a dyslexic author, I’m highly visual, and I share a number of approaches for moving my stories out of my head that are non-linear and often help students see that an approach they were using is not only valid, but used by authors. This boosts their confidence.

In the longer versions of this talk, I discuss how to have fully fleshed out characters and world building. This talk is available in a 45 minute and double-length 90 minute version.

Sample Talk 2

Building Immersive Worlds

This talk focuses on the subtle and substantive ways for creating an immersive world for readers, as well as how to avoid the classic pitfalls. This talk is available in a 45 minute version only.

Sample Talk 3

Creating a Twisted Fairy Tale

In my works, I always have elements of fairy tale in them. Working collaboratively with the students, I show how we can do create an all-new tale together in an hour. Often we create the first one together, then they split into groups to create another one themselves (depending on the amount of time available). Available in a 45 minute and a double-length 90 minute version.

If you’d like to book me, fill in the form.