Skype! (or Hiding Safely Behind My Keyboard)

Tip of the Day: Search through Kate Messner's blog for tips on Skype author visits!

On Thursday at my local RACWI meeting, author Kate Messner will be Skyping with us about how she successfully teaches, takes care of her family, and writes picture books, chapter books, and middle grade novels. Although my own PC doesn't seem to agree with Skype, I actually love the idea of using it for author visits on both the giving and receiving ends.

First of all, Skype is free!

Second, you can traverse great distances in a matter of seconds through the miracle of the internet. No long car trips to get an author into your library, classroom, meeting, etc.

Third, when I some day have my own pubbed books to discuss, the anxiety that accompanies doing a "visit" is so much less when you are doing your talk from the comfort of your own home.

And fourth, as a librarian who has hosted author visits at my library, it is kind of embarassing when you don't get the turn-out you hoped for to come see a fab author and it feels less of a burden when the author is on the big screen instead of in the room. :-o

There are tons more reasons why Skype is fab. What have your experiences been with this software?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Skype School Visit=Cool!

Tip of the Day: Download Skype for free here.

I had my first ever Skype school visit yesterday and it rocked! Two seventh graders from Mission Valley Middle School in Praire Village, Kansas, e-mailed and asked if I would chat with their class and I thought sure-- why not.

And let me say this now, the skype school visit is the writing mom's best friend! I can't tell you how many times I've felt terrible because I had to say no to a daytime school visit. It's just impossible with the crazy daily schedule of driving my four kids back and forth to their various schools and activities. I've been able to do after school visits but that's only when I can secure a babysitter and still, there is some rushing around to get the last kid from school beforehand. But this skype school visit thing? Brilliant. This morning I got home from dropping off my oldest son and then the girls, and fifteen minutes after walking through the door I was doing a skype visit from my dining room. The seventh graders I chatted with were awesome! They each prepared questions and took turns sitting in front of the web cam to ask. They were a great, bright group of kids with a lot of interesting questions. And the visit flew by. The only snafu was near the end my baby insisted on getting in on the chat and climbed up on my lap to talk too. But no one seemed to mind.

Now that I know how easy and FUN these Skype visits are I'll happily do more with any classes that want to contact me (Kristina at KristinaSpringer dot com). And, last summer Kate Messner (author of The Brilliant Gianna Z.) wrote a fabulous article about skyping with authors and included a giant list of authors who skype for free. Check it out.

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves