Writer, Editor, Publisher, Events Coordinator

Testimonials

Following are some letters/comments from librarians who have hosted Paul’s visits:

This letter is to congratulate you on your informative and captivating ‘Meet the author’ sessions at Footscray Library on Thursday 23rd August.
The students’ willing participation, and interest, was a direct result of your enthusiastic and easy communication. The editing exercise intrigued the students and they had to use their more imaginative caps to provide colourful adjectives for the creative writing.
The library service has received lots of positive feedback from appreciative students and teachers.
Thank you for making this program such a resounding success.

Paul visited our Library Service in May 2004. He single-handedly captivated 298 grade 5 and 6 kids in nine groups over two days. They loved his workshops and were enthusiastic participants. We moved him to five different locations some more opulent than others, he handled this all with good grace and courtesy to all children, teachers and library staff. We think Paul is great!

Paul Collins hosted an intensive week of writing workshops at our library. The students found his approach enlightening, inspiring and challenging. Teachers present commented on Paul’s encouraging approach to which the children responded confidently. Paul’s fantasy books captured the children’s imagination. We had more schools wishing to attend the sessions than we could accommodate and the feedback from both students and teachers was extremely positive.

In his workshops Paul sought to involve all the children, encouraging their contributions, developing their ideas and using them in a final product; I was particularly impressed with the way Paul validated every child’s response no matter how small. His manner with the children was so fantastic that I’m sure the children left with improved confidence in themselves and their writing.
Paul’s enthusiasm, knowledge and first hand experience will all matters relating to writing, editing, publishing, and marketing meant that his workshops had depth and were of great interest, he was able to show that writing doesn’t have to be an isolated activity there is a purpose for the effort.
Paul was able to tailor his sessions to each group. The workshops were very practical & covered a range of writing techniques; the children (and teachers) were able to return to classrooms with a mass of newly learned skills.

Paul Collins was one of the presenters at our ThinkFest in 2004. He led students through a writing master class in which students created a fantasy world. Paul enthused the students about writing and reading, and by the end of the session some could not wait to get back to school to read one of his books and others had decided on a literary career.

I most enjoyed writing with Paul Collins. He told us about his books and gave us handy tips on how to write and publish our work. We had to write a story using the words like sour, horrible, talent and tree.

The fantasy writing was enjoyable and I learned a lot from it. I might continue with my story because it is turning out well.
My favourite part of the Thinkfest was the writing part. We got to make a map of the short story we wrote. Paul Collins gave us good advice. It was very fun.

I found the fantasy writing skills enjoyable because Paul Collins showed us how he planned his books.

The fantasy writing activity was very interesting. Mr Paul Collins took us and told us about the exciting world of fantasy writing. He has really
inspired me to have a look down the writing path and maybe in a couple of years, I will be writing stories.

I really found the writing workshop interesting. I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed the writing workshop because it was different and you got to sit and listen as well as doing hands-on stuff. I found it really challenging when we had to write our own stories.

Paul was part of the State Library of Victoria’s author touring program Writers on the Road in June 2004. He spoke to 270 students over two days and received a great response from teachers and students. Typical of the feedback comments was the following from a teacher at Broadmeadows, “An excellent session giving both the students and teachers an insight into the incredible amount of work that goes into writing/publishing a book."
Paul was very professional in his planning and delivery of the sessions, and was positive and adaptable in the face of some last-minute changes to venues and some challenging students!

This was our second Lit Fest working with Paul Collins (Ford Street Publishing) to engage and excite our students about the world of books. The quality of the 12 authors and illustrators Paul organised for us was amazing – Emily Gale, Cath Crowley, George Ivanoff, Andrew Plant, Mark Wilson, Gabrielle Wang, and more. Our students were thoroughly engaged from the introductions with emcee Meredith Costain, within the workshops they attended and through to the final presentations with all our guests on stage. Both Paul and Meredith were exceptional to work with through the preliminary organising and on the day – offering suggestions, providing booklets and show bags, setting up the ‘pop up’ book shop, and even coming up with a last minute ‘chain story’ to fill in some time at the end! If you are thinking about holding your own ‘Lit Fest’ then I highly recommend going through Ford Street Publishing.

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