Melaina Faranda
Melaina Faranda grew from being a dreamy barefoot country kid to write over fifty Young Adult and Children’s books, published nationally and internationally - with many of her books used in schools across Australia. A highly engaging, energetic, and empathic presenter and facilitator, Melaina is passionate about sharing inspiring, practical, and fun creative writing, editing, and storytelling skills with students and helping to foster their talent.
Having taught and facilitated in numerous primary and secondary schools for over two decades, she's extremely versatile at connecting with and creating joyful creative experiences for young people of all ages. A natural-born storyteller, she's also an Emerson College storytelling graduate and has personally trained with many oral storytelling luminaries. Her workshops and presentations at schools, literature festivals, writers' centres, and organisations throughout Australia, regularly result in rave feedback and repeat invitations!
Presentations and Writing Workshops:
The Inner Magician
Duration - 1-1.5 hours
Suitable for all ages from Grade 5 up - Content is tailored to each group.
Writing an imaginative story is not a linear process, with the best and most unique and engaging ideas frequently originating from hidden creative deeps. This workshop teaches students a variety of techniques to access their own imaginative depths, through a series of specific portals into story ideas. Especially useful for NAPLAN preparation!
Topics Covered:
- How the imagination works
- Stream-of-consciousness writing for warming up
- How to get ideas through a variety of stimuli including: objects, the senses, and random words and images
Curriculum Outcomes:
- Writing and representing
- Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
- Expressing themselves
- Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
- Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
- Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings
First Kiss or a Beer Drinking Bear?
Duration – 1 hour
Suitable from Grade 5 up - Content is tailored for each group
This author presentation uses real-life storytelling to teach story writing and telling techniques in a way in which students don’t even realise they're learning. The presentation is a lot of fun, gets the kids laughing, and is especially suited for working with larger audiences. No pen or paper required!
Topics Covered:
- What makes an engaging story (and what makes a boring one)
- How to make a story memorable through specific details
- How to engage a listener or reader using sensory language
- How to create a sense of interest and intrigue about what will happen next
Curriculum Outcomes:
- Speaking and listening
- Writing and representing
- Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
- Expressing themselves
Written on the Body - Creating Compelling Characters
Suitable from Grade 6 - Content is tailored for each group
This workshop takes a unique approach to discovering a character through a process of segueing back and forth between their character’s inner world of perception and outer sensory experiences. Students will literally write on a drawing they create.
Topics Covered:
- Discovering an original character vs inserting stereotypes into a story
- Using aspects of their character’s body to reveal and record their experiences
- Distinguishing between the character’s exterior sensory world and perceptions of it
- Learning how to use their character’s inner and outer world to create a story plot
Curriculum Outcomes:
- Writing and representing
- Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
- Expressing themselves
- Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
- Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
- Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings
Choose Your Own Curriculum-Connected Adventure...
Duration 1 - 1.5 hours
Suitable for all stages - Content is tailored for each group
Having worked as a schoolteacher for over twenty years, along with delivering hundreds of writing workshops throughout Australia, Melaina is able to create bespoke workshops to specifically fit with your areas of study and curriculum needs.
Topics Covered:
- Whatever is the focus and priority for your students!
How to Make Bad Writing Better and Good Writing Great!
with Melaina Faranda
Duration 1-1.5hours (or for older students can be longer - this workshop is especially valuable for Years 10 and up)
This self-editing workshop is a distillation of techniques gleaned from working with twenty plus editors from over ten different publishing companies and for many students is surprisingly enjoyable! The focus is not on grammar and punctuation, so much as specific editing techniques taught in a step-by-step easy format that even the most disinterested writers can use to instantly improve their writing (and marks). Great for NAPLAN or HSC preparation.
Topics Covered:
- A brief demonstration of the process of how books are edited and an embarrassing confession
- Distinguishing between the art and craft of writing a story
- Numerous self-editing techniques learned from over twenty different editors
- Easy to learn nuts and bolts tools and techniques for students to instantly apply to their work!
Workshop: How to Write a Story Without Having to Think…
With Melaina Faranda
Duration 1-1.5 hours
‘But I don’t know what to write…’ Ever heard that one before? In this fun, engaging, highly imaginative (and frequently surprising) creative writing workshop, students are taken through a process, invented by Melaina one dark and stormy night… Actually, it was a moment of playfulness that led to the invention of a writing technique which has since delighted kids and adults across Australia. Both highly enjoyable and strangely effortless, the outcome of this workshop is the beginnings, bones, inspiration, and discovery of images and stories your students might never have believed themselves capable of.
Topics Covered:
*How to generate an idea from ‘nothing’
*How to discover and develop story through internal perception & external experiences
*How character motivations can create plot and vice versa
*How to use the senses to deepen and enrich story
*How possessions, surroundings, and memory can create and deepen story
Curriculum outcomes:
- Writing and representing
- Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
- Expressing themselves
- Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
- Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
- Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings
Storytelling Out Loud!
With Melaina Faranda
Duration - half to full day
Not all people will be writers, but everyone is a storyteller. Long before pen and paper and keyboards and screens… people told stories. Out loud, and in the moment, with some being passed from mouth to ear for millennia. Stories are at the heart of being human, (we all know how it is to try telling students to stop talking!) and learning to tell a story well is a priceless life skill. In this fun, action-packed workshop - students will learn specific skills and techniques for crafting, remembering, voice work, characterisation, gesture, movement, and the presentation of a story. They will be given opportunities to develop confidence in public speaking and becoming more engaging storytellers!
Topics Covered:
*Crafting stories to tell aloud
*Techniques for exploring and memorising stories
*Voice work
*Creating characterisation through voice, gaze, and gesture
*Movement
*Overall presentation skills
Curriculum links and outcomes:
- Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
- Expressing themselves
- Performing Arts
- Language, ideas and dramatic meaning
- Mood and atmosphere
Testimonials
I have so been meaning to contact you and tell you how excited and happy my grandson was after the kids' writing masterclass at Bangalow with you. "The best teacher, the best story teller, someone who makes everything interesting and is full of joy."
Thank you so much from a grandma !!
Bangalow Master Class - 2022Thank you for your awesome presentation! The students were engaged the whole time and loved experiencing your stories as you told them.The great point about the power of using the senses to paint pictures in our audience's mind was fantastic. Using this technique in your storytelling helped students see how valuable this tool can be. Thank you for visiting our school and sharing your life as an author... very engaging and inspiring!
St. Ambrose School, Pottsville, NSW - 2022Thank you so very much for your work with our Stage 3 students and teachers. They were all thrilled and excited by your presentation! We are most grateful for your time and energy.🤗
…Thank you again for being so wonderful.'
St. James Primary School Banora Point, NSW - August 2022Melaina was an excellent choice as author-in-residence for 2 days recently. We gave her the brief to assist our Year 9 boys in beginning their Mystery narrative writing assessment. Melaina encouraged the Year 9 boys to develop their plot and use hook sentences to "get the reader in" and strong verbs to improve their writing. Melaina's use of entertaining personal stories and imaginative scenarios kept the classes intrigued and inspired to write more. One teacher commented that it was "the most engaged" she had ever seen Year 9 boys with a visiting author. Melaina came very well prepared and engaged with the boys enthusiastically.
Melaina was also the VIP guest at our Year 5-6 and Year 7-12 book clubs. The boys loved learning about the process involved in becoming a published author and she encouraged all aspiring writers to follow their dreams. Her warm and endearing manner with the boys of all ages was fantastic.
Iona College - May, 2017Melaina was an inspiration. From the very beginning of her presentation she kept the student’s attention. We currently have our Book Week display up and are focusing on the slogan ‘ Australia : Story country’. She incorporated it and her storytelling appeared effortless. She challenged the students to analyse the tools she had used. We are now using her techniques in our Book Week classes and are getting the students to continue telling stories around our camp fire.
Melaina Faranda - St Peters Lutheran College - August 2016
Best Friend
Deep Time
Jack No Name
Keep the Light Burning
Memory Bones
Riverboat Boy
Rose Ruby
The Best Kind of Dad
The Ninth Dragon
The Circle - Greenheart
The Circle - Princess
The Circle - Gift
The Circle - Dreamer
Queensland
Speaker type
- Author
- Educational consultant