RWANDA
WRITES
Presenters
Three authors and one coordinator came together to make a lasting impression on the future writers of Rwanda. Read more about them.
Kristen Swanson
Kristen Swanson is an English teacher for middle school students in Pennsylvania.
She lived in Tanzania for ten years, and during that time developed a lifelong commitment to help African communities. Using her connection to ALARM, and her knowledge of children's authors, she organized the conference and provided support to both the published authors and Rwandan participants.
Link to her blog (Mamajojo's Muse to see her experiences in Africa, and how RwandaWrites came about: http://mamajojosmuse.blogspot.com/
Guy Macdonald
Guy Macdonald's first book was The Cadogan Guide to England, after which came a number of children's non fiction books such as The Harry Potter Quiz Book, and The Boys Book How to Be the Best at Everything.
He teamed up with two school friends in 2005 to write Beastly Business, a six book fantasy series for Simon and Schuster, and followed up with Alien Invaders, a 10 book space adventure series for Random House.
He swims a lot (including the English Channel in a four man relay team in 2010) has a dog (a whippet called Cassie) a wife and 2-year-old son, Finn.
Pamela Schembri
Pamela Schembri is an author, professional storyteller, librarian and technology facilitator at a high school in Newburgh, New York.
She began telling stories twenty years ago and writing books came from her love of a good story. She is the co-author of the Second Grade Friends Series, and has presented at conferences and schools in the United State. In addition to Rwanda Writes, she is working with ALARM to help the IWE school library.
Peter Catalanotto
Peter Catalanotto has illustrated 45 books for children, 15 of which he has written, including Monkey & Robot, Question Boy Meets Little Miss Know-It-All, Ivan the Terrier, Matthew A.B.C., and Emily’s Art.
Peter has demonstrated his creative process for writing and drawing in over 1500 schools and libraries across the United States. This past summer he taught the first Children's Book Writing course offered at Columbia University and has been invited to return next summer.