Available for virtual visits in: New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Ontario
Craft: Author/Illustrator
Genre: Picture Books, Non-Fiction
Grades: Kindergarten-Grade 8
Cost for School and Public Readings Program: $200.00, plus applicable taxes
Website: www.carolynfisher.com
Presentation Information
•All presentations will feature sketchbooks, storyboards, and drawing in drafts.
•All presentations will feature one book. Please choose from the following options:
A Twisted Tale (Best for Division I) One day, Carolyn had an idea for a picture book, but when then idea got out of her brain and on to the paper, it looked like a tornado had hit it. Carolyn shows kids that when you develop your redrawing and rewriting superpowers, you can take a messy sketch and still––somehow––make it into a book.
Two Old Potatoes and Me (Best for K-1)A girl and her dad take some sprouty old potatoes and plant them in the garden. They weed, they water and they wait. Come September, ta-dah! They dig a bunch of new potatoes. What’s YOUR favourite way to eat potatoes?
The Snow Show (Best for Division II)Carolyn’s editor came to visit from California during a raging Alberta snowstorm. The temperature was –39C. The doors on the editor’s airplane luggage compartment froze shut. “Hey,” Carolyn said. “Maybe I should write and illustrate a book about hot and cold!” And so she did. Read The Snow Show to find out how Carolyn made a picture book that explains a science concept.
The Story of CELLS; Or How I Wrote One Book in Five Ways (Best for grade 6 to 12) When Carolyn had a brilliant idea for a new book, she was sure her editor would be thrilled. Join this workshop to hear a tragic tale of rejection and resilience that ultimately resulted in Carolyn’s book, Cells: An Owner’s Handbook – with many twists and turns along the way.
•All presentations will feature live drawing. Please choose from the following options:
- The Pandemic Portrait Project
During the COVID 19 Pandemic, Carolyn misses making on-the-spot portraits of kids during her school author visits. So she had an idea: what about a social distance portrait session – live over Zoom! Students get to watch Carolyn demonstrate her technique for capturing a likeness of a person from the audience. When she’s done the portrait, she gifts it to the school. Carolyn needs a session time of 45 minutes to 1 hour in order to be able to do a portrait. See some videos with examples of Carolyn’s pandemic portrait drawings here: http://www.carolynfisher.com/videos
- A Crowd-Sourced Story
Carolyn draws a character based on suggestions from the students. Then (time permitting) Carolyn and the kids brainstorm a storyline for the character, complete with protagonist, antagonist, rising action, climax and resolution. (And, if we’re lucky, a twist!) Carolyn shares her rough sketches with the school, and is happy to see the results later when students take that story seed and use it as a jumping off point for their own interpretation and improvisation.
Book List
Summer Feet, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher and written by Sheree Fitch (2020).
Halifax: Nimbus Publishing.
Cells: An Owner’s Handbook, illustrated and written by Carolyn Fisher (2019).
New York: Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books
Weeds Find a Way, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher and written by Cynthia Jenson Elliott
(2014). New York: Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books
Good Night, World, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher and written by Willa Perlman (2011).
New York: Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books
The Snow Show, illustrated and written by Carolyn Fisher (2008). New York: Harcourt
Two Old Potatoes and Me, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher, featured on the PBS educational television show Reading Rainbow (2005).
2003 Two Old Potatoes and Me, illustrated by Carolyn Fisher and written by John Coy
New York: Random House
A Twisted Tale, illustrated and written by Carolyn Fisher, (2001). New York: Random House
Biography
Award-winning artist and author Carolyn Fisher has been drawing pictures and writing stories for her whole life. She wrote three of the eight books she has illustrated. Her book Two Old Potatoes and Me was featured on the PBS educational TV show Reading Rainbow. Paul O. Zelinsky, writing for The New York Times Book Review, called her bookThe Snow Show “…visually arresting…one of the most gloriously exuberant, inventive displays of computer-created art that I have ever seen in a picture book.” In addition to teaching at art college for seven years, Carolyn has talked to thousands of kids and adults in libraries and schools —and online — about writing and art. She draws and writes in her studio in Calgary, Canada.
Find more of Carolyn’s work at:
Instagram: carolyn_fisher_illustration