A visit from a real-life author can be a great way to inspire students of all ages! I absolutely love to meet and chat about — well — anything writing, publishing, or book-related. In the past, I’ve done everything from talks for 20 to 400 fifth-sixth graders, to writing-focused discussions at conferences, to book club meetings and formal university readings.
Feel free to reach out via email: alyssamhollingsworth@gmail.com
A typical talk can last between 30-45 minutes, though I am always flexible to your schedule and happy to adjust to your students’ needs. I am comfortable speaking for many different age groups, from 8-12s to teenagers to higher education settings.
For 8-12-year-olds, I offer different sets of talks based around each of my books in this age range. I’m happy to mix and match the sections or customize the talks according to class needs.
A talk centered around the history, geography, and cultures of Afghanistan (particularly Pashtun culture). I share some of the stories from my visit to Afghanistan and research considerations that went into the crafting of The Eleventh Trade. Optional additions: A section about the rebab (traditional instrument) — including a “guess this song section” — and a section about landays (traditional oral poetry) — including a “do it yourself” section.
In this talk, I describe how The Eleventh Trade came to exist. I incorporate a lot of humor about my own process and my interactions with my literary agent. At the end, I use story prompt games to help students create their own tall tales.
The Eleventh Trade has many themes that brush on trauma, PTSD, and the difficulties of healing. In this talk, I present a kid-friendly exploration of what happens in your brain when you experience something traumatic and how PTSD works. 1 in 5 kids in the 8-12 age range have already experienced significant trauma in their lives, and this talk is meant to help make sense of and be empowered by how our brains work. I balance this with a section on healing, with activities to help kids brainstorm their own unique self-care plans and help them articulate ways to be a good listener and ally for their friends.
With a series of questions, students are prompted to make a list of their interests and a list of questions they’d like to find answers to. I guide them in seeing if they can find a creative way to combine the two and create stories. This transitions into a reading of The Invisible Boy.
A kid-friendly introduction to modern-day human trafficking. I lead a discussion on the basic history behind human trafficking, the importance of seeing it, and the signs to look for. Note that the talk sticks with labor trafficking and does not go into detail about other forms of trafficking.
I turn to the lighter side of The Invisible Boy, and my deep dive into the lore of Superman. Students are guided through an activity to create their own superhero identities.
So, what does it look like to combine your interests with a question? I use gifs and humor to show how The Invisible Boy went from draft to full manuscript… to draft to full manuscript again… to draft to full manuscript again… I had to rewrite the book five times in all. The importance of revision is emphasized, and on how to continue even when you’re not sure you can do it.
For 13-18 year olds, I offer different sets of talks based around All the Queens’ Curses and my PhD research. I’m happy to mix and match the sections or customize the talks according to class needs.
Fairytales have been around almost as long as humans have had language, and we are still retelling them today. Why? This is a led discussion where participants explore how some tales stick with us and how retelling can give us new insights into classic stories.
A look at the research that went into All the Queens’ Curses, including site visits, interviews and reading. This session encourages young people to pursue topics of study that intrigue them and find interesting ways to get hands-on (even if it means putting on a medieval gown and running around fields for a while!).
The group will take a familiar fairytale (like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast) and construct their own retelling. This is a participatory workshop with lots of brainstorming and fun.
A young-audience-friendly look at how brains work and what happens when people are under stress. Topics covered include fight/flight/freeze/faun, why memory can be tricky around intense experiences, and how people can help their body calm down.
Why on earth would anyone do a PhD in creative writing? Is writing for a professor the same as writing for a publisher? How much say do authors have in their covers? This topic covers the drafting process for a creative work that also needed to fulfill academic standards, how to keep things fun when you’re reading a million books about trauma, and surprising novel changes between writing for a PhD and writing for a publisher.
For writing groups or higher education settings, I love to do writing workshops where participants are encouraged to do writing and/or brainstorming during the session. They are recommended to be a minimum of 90 minutes but can easily be longer than 2 hours if needed. Abridged versions can be made available for shorter sessions if needed.
Most stories contain an element of trauma. Find out ways to develop your plot and characters by looking at the latest in our understanding of the impact of trauma on young people. This lecture has a focus on the Adverse Childhood Experience Quiz and the Resiliency Quiz.
There’s a cliché about absent parents in kidlit, but family is much more important to childhood development than you might think. Using It Didn’t Start with You and other resources for mapping family dynamics, we explore your character’s family and the ways their upbringing will have positive or negative impacts on their story.
Through guided prompts, participants are helped to create a compelling set of questions and answers that will reveal the heart of their story.
In this workshop, I talk about how to find your novel’s opening — one of the hardest parts of the process. I give an introduction, then release the viewer to do writing exercises. I also read and discuss some examples from published work.
The first half of the workshop covers a quick introduction to trauma and the brain. Participants are then invited to choose from a selection of pre-prepared fairytales. With some guidance from the Adverse Childhood Experience Quiz and the Resiliency Quiz, participants will then engage with a few writing prompts to explore how they might retell their chosen fairytale with a focus on themes around trauma and resiliency.
In this workshop, we will be examining different types of belonging – to a place, a family, an idea or even a story – and brainstorm what belonging looks like for our characters. We will examine practical ways to show different stages of the search for belonging in our writing, from yearning to journey to arrival.
I am also very comfortable taking on general question and answer sessions, whether they are about my books in particular or broader writing/publishing topics. I have experience in both UK and US sides of publishing and am happy to discuss both/either.
Our children loved meeting Alyssa and hearing how she had developed her debut novel. Her presentation took in many themes that were poignant and of interest to the children; they remained engaged and enthusiastic throughout her presentation. Alyssa has a wonderful manner with the children too and they listened really attentively. Her book covers so many current and relevant topics that it is a brilliant book to share with Upper KS2 classes. We can’t wait to have it as our ‘Class Novel’!
Poppy Morris, Year 6 teacher and Reading Lead, Moorlands Primary School Bath
Alyssa Hollingsworth’s talk about her debut novel The Eleventh Trade was a huge success with the MA Writing for Young People students at Bath Spa University. Alyssa talked eloquently, helpfully and with humour about her writing process, her story, the research and background to writing her novel. We found her inspiring. I particularly loved her account of the issues she covers in her school visits. I would highly recommend her as a speaker for both adults and young people.
Professor Julia Green, Course Director, MA Writing for Young People, Bath Spa University, UK
Alyssa Hollingsworth did a fantastic job and both the students and the teachers enjoyed hearing about her writing process and writing journey. After the talks, my students continued working on story ideas using the lists they made based on Alyssa’s prompts. It was really great to hear their ideas as they bounced them off of each other!
Bonnie Mitchell, 7th English Language Arts Teacher, Rome Middle School
VIRTUAL EVENTS:
SUPER LOCAL:
(Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan)
LOCAL:
(within 80 miles of Cardiff)
BEYOND LOCAL
(anything beyond 80 miles from Cardiff)
SPEECHES:
Need someone to talk at a keynote, conference, or other event? Or maybe you just want to keep things virtual? Contact me (alyssamhollingsworth@gmail.com or with the form below) and we’ll see what we can do!
© 2025 · Alyssa Hollingsworth
