Book An Author Talk

Since the pub­li­ca­tion of my debut nov­el Empire of the Waves: Voy­age of the Moon Child (Pen­guin) it has been my great joy to vis­it schools, libraries, and lit­er­ary fes­ti­vals to share my love of books and writ­ing with pri­ma­ry stu­dents, high school stu­dents, and adults. Sto­ries are a light in dark places! As a writer, read­er, and expe­ri­enced teacher I am pas­sion­ate about work­ing with schools to devel­op dynam­ic writ­ing work­shops for stu­dents and teach­ers across (and beyond!) the curriculum. 

For school, library, fes­ti­val, and event queries and book­ings, please email me direct­ly.

“Christo­pher Richard­son was com­plete­ly bril­liant. Spent a lot of time talk­ing to the kids and real­ly had them inter­est­ed in what his expe­ri­ences of nov­el writ­ing have been. Please can he come again next year? I’m seri­ous.” Bev Shroot, Crown Street Pub­lic School

“Your author vis­it to Pen­rith High real­ly inspired our Year 9 stu­dents. The stu­dents were total­ly absorbed as demon­strat­ed by the mul­ti­tude of ques­tions you answered thought­ful­ly and astute­ly. It can be hard to engage aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly selec­tive stu­dents at times, how­ev­er, you had them think­ing and inter­est­ed. The hall was buzzing when you fin­ished.” Nathan Wilcox, Teacher-Librar­i­an, Pen­rith High School

Whilst I empha­sise the impor­tance of research and dis­ci­pline in the cre­ative process, my focus is always on the sheer joy of sto­ry­telling.

Tes­ti­mo­ni­als

“Thank you very much for such a warm and enthu­si­as­tic talk to our stu­dents. The Year 8 stu­dents are already ask­ing when can you speak to them! I loved the pirate clan work­shop too…” Helen Lee, Teacher-Librar­i­an, St George Girls High

“Thank you so much for com­ing to speak to us yes­ter­day. The Kog­a­rah High stu­dents from 8K real­ly enjoyed your pre­sen­ta­tion and are very eager to read your book … It was the first time our stu­dents had met a pub­lished author and they were very impressed both with your book and your pre­sen­ta­tion which was inter­est­ing and pitched at just the right lev­el for them.” Gail John­ston, Kog­a­rah High School

“Thanks again for an amaz­ing work­shop. The kids there real­ly loved it. You tru­ly inspired them.” Tara Klein, Youth Ser­vices Spe­cial­ist, City of Cana­da Bay Libraries

“The stu­dents at Ulti­mo Pub­lic School were cap­ti­vat­ed by Christo­pher, his engag­ing man­ner and easy going pre­sen­ta­tion style encour­aged even our reluc­tant read­ers to get enthused about sea mon­sters, pirates, float­ing worlds and Krak­ens!” Wendy Bull, Teacher-Librar­i­an, Ulti­mo Pub­lic School

“Thank you so much for all your fan­tas­tic sto­ries. Thank you for shar­ing with us your expe­ri­ence and secrets of your book writ­ing. Your pas­sion is very clear and it’s been a plea­sure to lis­ten to you.” Ela Sircelj, Teacher-Librar­i­an, Lore­to Kirribilli

“Christo­pher expert­ly man­aged to engage a large group (many of whom hadn’t read his nov­el yet) and then a small­er group of ardent fans. His vis­it has cre­at­ed a lot of antic­i­pa­tion for the next install­ment in the series. It would be unrea­son­able to expect all authors to be engag­ing speak­ers. They could cer­tain­ly be for­giv­en for see­ing school vis­its as a nec­es­sary evil. Over many years of ‘guest author’ talks I have sat through in schools, it is obvi­ous that some of them would pre­fer to be any­where but talk­ing to their teenage read­ers! Chris, on the oth­er hand, comes alive talk­ing to his read­ers and it seems to be a gen­uine plea­sure for him to hear their feed­back and reac­tions to his fic­tion.” Rachel Duke, Head of Eng­lish, San­ta Sabi­na Col­lege, Strathfield

“The suc­cess of your recent vis­it to Trin­i­ty Gram­mar School dur­ing Term 2 has left a strong and pos­i­tive impres­sion on the young stu­dents who attend­ed your work­shops, many buy­ing your nov­el at the end of ses­sions. Staff, too, enjoyed see­ing the ben­e­fits of hav­ing a young, inspir­ing and engag­ing writer con­vey a pas­sion for lit­er­a­ture, writ­ing and sto­ry­telling. Many are ask­ing: when is Book Two pub­lished? I am impressed with the suc­cess of the nov­el for young, and old­er read­ers, alike, and can­not wait for you to return to Trin­i­ty to con­tin­ue the sto­ry of Anni Tidechild. Thank you for your inspi­ra­tion, hard work and pas­sion in pro­vid­ing an engag­ing read for so many.” Justin McGrath, Senior Eng­lish Teacher, Trin­i­ty Gram­mar School

North Korea Workshops

In 2016, I grad­u­at­ed with a PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney with a the­sis research­ing the chil­dren’s cul­ture of North Korea (DPRK). My work has fea­tured world­wide in jour­nals, news­pa­pers, radio, tele­vi­sion and online.

In recent years, I have had the hon­our of vis­it­ing many schools to talk about North Korea with stu­dents and teach­ers, whether in the con­text of Cold War his­to­ry, the his­to­ry of total­i­tar­i­an­ism, legal stud­ies, pro­pa­gan­da stud­ies, rep­re­sen­ta­tion, or through the prism of dystopi­an lit­er­ary studies.

“Year 10 boys were treat­ed to a talk from Dr Christo­pher Richard­son who spoke on the top­ic of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in rela­tion to North Korea. Dr Richard­son shared fas­ci­nat­ing insights into how truth is manip­u­lat­ed and per­cep­tions shaped, through means such as children’s lit­er­a­ture, school text­books and visu­al images. The boys were high­ly engaged and asked many thought­ful ques­tions. Excel­lent inspi­ra­tion was pro­vid­ed…” Tania Mason, Head of Eng­lish, Trin­i­ty Gram­mar School

For school, library, or fes­ti­val queries and book­ings, please con­tact me direct­ly.  

Wrap-up on Pre­vi­ous Stu­dent Events

New­ing­ton Col­lege Lit­Fest 2023

New­ing­ton Col­lege Fes­ti­val of Lit­er­a­ture 2021

Patri­cian Broth­ers’ Col­lege Fair­field Book Week 2019: Wiz­ards, Wars & Words

Oakhill Col­lege Ban­quet of Books: Book Week 2019

New­ing­ton Col­lege Fes­ti­val of Lit­er­a­ture 2019: Salila, Nar­nia, Mid­dle-earth & North Korea

Meet­ing Sefton High: In Praise of The Chil­dren’s Book­shop in Beecroft, 2018

CBCA Lunch With The Stars and One Book, One Pen

Dystopi­an Fic­tion at San­ta Sabi­na Col­lege 2017

New­ing­ton Fes­ti­val Col­lege Lit­er­a­ture Fes­ti­val 2017

NSW Pre­mier’s Read­ing Chal­lenge, Words & Art Com­pe­ti­tion 2016

Book Week 2016

St George Girls High & Kog­a­rah High School

Som­er­set Cel­e­bra­tion of Literature

Inter­na­tion­al Gram­mar School, Sydney

Trin­i­ty Gram­mar School, Prepara­to­ry School, Strathfield

Cam­denville Pub­lic School, Newtown

Teacher Resources for Empire of the Waves

Empire of the Waves: Voy­age of the Moon Child Teach­ing Notes

Rachel Duke, “Tim­ber Shiv­er­ing­ly Good:” Class­room Ideas for Empire of the Waves in Off The Shelf, Issue 17, pp 17–20 (Sep­tem­ber 2015)