Jessie Haas
Award-winning Children's Author

A school visit can be structured in many different ways, depending on age groups and the teachers' needs. I love best to do a combined slide show, reading, and question and answer session; that gives students a chance to see where I live (and my animals!), to hear some of my work, and then to ask the questions about what interests them the most. This works best with a smaller group--up to around thirty.

I also present a program I call Junkyard Wars, after the popular television program. (It's on The Learning Channel, so it's okay!) This answers the ever-popular question, Where do you get your ideas? As someone married to a junkyard engineer--you would not believe some of the components that went into making our house!--I have a special love of picking up some scrap of information that might not look like much to anyone else, and crafting a story around it. This gets young writers thinking about the unconsidered trifles in their own lives, and what they might make of them.

My newest novel, CHASE, offers a wide range of topics for discussion for fifth-graders and up, questions that stem from history--the labor unrest of 1870s coal country--but that resonate today. Who is a patriot? Who is a terrorist? Why does a nation of immigrants always fear the newcomers? Can we learn to feel differently? For a group that has read CHASE, or shared it as a read-aloud, this makes for a lively and freewheeling session.

My husband is children's author Michael J. Daley. We love to travel together, and are happy to talk with schools about offering a discount to bring both of us to speak. It's been fun to share the podium with him at recent events we've both done through CLiF, the Children's Literacy Foundation. For boys, hearing a man talk about writing and reading is often cooler than hearing a woman say the same things. I try not to get jealous when he's the rock-star!

Together, Michael and I have been the writing mentors for Brattleboro's Maple Leaf Writing Contest, in which fifth and sixth graders write, edit, illustrate, and produce books, which are then judged by an independant panel. We have many years of experience critiquing manuscripts, and difficult though the process can be (even for adult writers!) we've been impressed at the progress these young authors are capable of making. We love to help writers grow. If you have an idea for a program that could use our critiquing and council, let's talk.

In Vermont or within 100 miles from my home, I charge $800/​day.
Farther away, $1000/​day.
A day is 3 presentations, with a short reading for younger kids included free.
Schools pay mileage and/​or travel expenses, and overnight accomodations where neccessary.
Michael J. Daley and I offer a discount for joint bookings--contact us for details. Fees payable the day of the presentation.


Contact info:
Jessie Haas
367 Lettieri Road,
Putney, Vt. 05346
kjh@​sover.net
802-387-2601