speaking
I am now booking school visits, presentations, talks, and workshops for 2025, for audiences of all ages.
If you’re interested in an in-person visit or an hour-long online visit (a slideshow presentation or creative writing workshop), please email me at LauraResau@gmail.com with the subject heading “Author Visit.”
Please scroll down to read more about my author visits. Thanks!
Free Virtual Q&A
I offer a limited number of free online author chats with book clubs, classes, or other groups who have read one of my books. If your group would like to do a free 20-minute Q&A session by video-chat with me, please complete and submit the form linked below. Please put LauraResau@gmail.com in your contacts to make sure my response gets to your inbox. I will then email you to confirm the date, time, and platform of the virtual visit. I recommend you reserve a spot as soon as you can. My general availability is 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 pm MST, and I can usually extend those hours up until 8:00 pm MST if needed. (Please specify your time zone!) Thanks, and I look forward to connecting with you!
In-Person Author Visits (for 2025-2026)
I love chatting with book clubs, speaking at Community Reads programs, participating in festivals, presenting at conferences, and visiting schools and libraries.
Basic Presentations
Making Magic: The Inspiration behind The Alchemy of Flowers: [Description coming soon! This will be a fun one, with Goddess mythology, healing with flowers, and more… About 45 minutes in length, recommended for adults.]
Behind the Book with Laura Resau: In this fun and interactive presentation, acclaimed author Laura Resau shares her journey as a writer— from a kid who loved story-telling all the way to a published author. She talks about the experiences abroad that inspired her books and explains the process of writing and publishing a novel, offering tips for aspiring writers. Q&A at the end.
Approximately 45 minutes in length. Laura can highlight the novel of your choice, and can gear this presentation toward any age group, from mid-elementary to adult.
Picture Book Fun with Stand as Tall as the Trees (co-written with Patricia Gualinga): Award-winning author Laura Resau gives a behind-the scenes peek at how she worked with her co-author, Patricia Gualinga, and illustrator, Vanessa Jaramillo, to create Stand as Tall as the Trees. In this fun and interactive presentation, Laura shows slides of her trip to an Indigenous community in the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador and shares the eye-opening experiences that inspired her to reach out to her co-author, Paty. Children learn how Paty’s Indigenous Kichwa community protected their sacred forest home from an invading oil company, winning a landmark victory. After a fun “brain break,”Laura shares clips of Vanessa doing the watercolor art, then reads the story aloud as she shows the illustrations. Kids have ten minutes for questions and comments. They’ll leave the presentation feeling inspired, informed, and enthusiastic about creating books and protecting human and environmental rights.
Approximately 45 minutes total length, recommended for elementary school age.
Writing Workshops
Workshops emphasize basic creative writing skills including the use of sensory descriptions, specific details, imagery, showing-not-telling, character arc, and story structure. About an hour in length and adapted for upper elementary through high school levels.
Build Your Own Story! Ever wonder how authors take raw materials and craft them into an exciting story? Laura Resau will show you the building blocks of a story— character, setting, theme, and plot (problem and solution). You’ll do fun, hands-on activities using intriguing prompts and a basic blueprint. By the end of the workshop, your creativity will be flowing and you’ll have the satisfaction of having completed your own story. Then you can take the blueprint and build some more...
*Recommended for upper elementary and middle school
Make Your World Come Alive! Isn't it a delicious feeling to delve into a book and enter another world? Laura Resau will show you how to enrich setting and character through imagery and description. You'll do short, fun writing exercises to help make your story a vivid, multi-sensory experience that readers can't resist. This workshop will let your writing shine!
*Recommended for middle and high school
The Hero's Journey: How to Structure an Unputdownable Story—Acclaimed author Laura Resau shows how the Hero’s Journey framework can help you design plot, character development, and pacing. Laura has used some version of the Hero’s Journey for each of her nine novels for kids and teens. Humans resonate with this story structure on a deep psychological level, which makes it a powerful tool for writers. You’ll leave this fun, interactive workshop with ways to grab your readers and keep them emotionally engaged as your story unfolds.
*Recommended for middle and high school
Chocolate Flight ‘n’ Write: Join acclaimed author Laura Resau for a delicious writing workshop. Laura will guide you through a fun chocolate tasting, which will open your senses and let your creativity soar. Write imagery-rich poems, stories, and character sketches… all while enjoying chocolate as exquisite inspiration. *Recommended for elementary through high school
Advanced Writing Workshops
Laura offers workshops geared toward experienced adult writers, adapted to the needs of the participants. For example:
Adventures in Novel Writing! Writing a book can be a wild journey— at times thrilling, and at times, not-so-fun. Laura Resau will share practical, emotional, and psychological strategies that have helped her enjoy the adventure, and most importantly, finish each of her ten acclaimed books for children and teens. You'll leave the session feeling energized and equipped with new tools to get through the rough parts of your own book-writing journey.
Praise for Laura’s Adult Writing Workshops
“I was completely wow’ed and in awe of your caring, intentional, positive spirit and presence. You made everyone feel like they mattered and you sure delivered us grand motivation and inspiration. Your reflective adventure was chockful of questions that we as writers can keep going back to and using in this crazy adventure. And, you made it such fun. Your authenticity and open-ness was beautiful!”
"I've gone to a lot of workshops, but Laura's was the first one in a long time that energized me, motivated me to pause and start again."
"Laura's workshop was exactly what I have needed for a long time."
“Laura was so personal and refreshing.”
"What an energizing workshop. I needed that boost...I needed those questions."
"Laura's questions made me dig deep and look at myself in the mirror. I kept working on my answers in my journal."
“Your workshop was the best one I attended that weekend. You are amazing and have inspired me beyond words.”
Teacher Praise for Laura’s School Visits
I can't say enough great things about Laura's visits to my class. I've had her come for three years in a row. Not only is Laura extremely personable, but she also has beautiful pictures of people, places, and events that inspire her writing... Laura also shares samples from her writing journals and shows how bits become incorporated into her novels. One of my favorite pictures is of her many drafts of What the Moon Saw all stacked side-by-side. It is a powerful visual to illustrate revision. The students truly get a sense of the writing process… Laura has a warm, engaging personality that connects with her audience. I highly recommend Laura for an author visit to your middle school.
— Beth Knees, Sixth Grade Teacher
It was such a treat having you come visit our students and our school today! I loved how you included the process of the artist's watercolors in your presentation. That was beautiful and fun for our little artists to see! I also appreciated how you interwove the story and its illustrations with pictures and videos from the real-life places that the story was depicting. That made it all so real for your audience. That connection between our life experiences and art and writing as a means of expressing those experiences is so powerful and inspiring. – Mrs. Caputo, 2nd grade teacher, Irish Bilingual Immersion School, Fort Collins
Thank you sooooo much for coming in yesterday! The kids absolutely loved your presentation. Not only did they love the presentation, but also, all of them had some great connection to the content you were discussing. It was amazing to see some of the Hispanic kids come out of their shells and speak up about their experiences in Mexico. Thanks again for your time, and I would love for you to come visit again!
— Derek Decker, Teacher, Putnam Elementary, Fort Collins
We loved having you at Harris. It was so great that you were able to speak Spanish to set up the scenes that you were reading in English. The students really loved it, and so did I.
— Martha Petty, Media Specialist, Harris Bilingual Immersion Elementary, Fort Collins
Mrs. Resau provided an engaging, student-centered Power Point program interweaving Q & A breaks to our district intermediate Battle of the Book student teams, their families, administrators, and their academic coaches. Her complete attention on her audience and focus on the writing process, the inspiration of her books, and her worldwide travels made her an instant hit with everyone in audience. She has set the bar high for quality author visits to come. I highly recommend this outstanding author, Laura Resau, to come to your school.
— Kathy L. Deal, Vigo County District Intervention Coach, Indiana
Student Praise for Laura's Visits
Your presentation on Tuesday was wonderful! It was AWESOME to hear about all your experiences... Many of the things you talked about touched me, and you helped me to realize an important point in my writing: it doesn't have to be perfect the first time!... I feel that I learned much from your presentation.... You are a very down-to-earth person with much to share and I'm glad I got to be a part of it...You are my inspiration!
— High school student
You really inspired me to read more books ((: Not only that but I've actually discovered that I have writing skills. ♥— High School student
[Your workshop] really gave me some more motivation, and I made my mother take me to Walgreens to buy my idea notebook that you mentioned. I actually wrote down a poem already on the first page because I felt like the first page of this composition book was a new beginning...
— High School student
It was amazing to meet a real author for the first time.
— Tanya, 6th grade
You inspired me!
— Andrea, 6th grade
I enjoyed the fun creative writing assignment. Maybe someday I'll be an author or poet.
— Ellie
It was very interesting how you came up with your ideas; now I want to go to Oaxaca!
— Caitlin