School Visits and AppearAnces

Veera loves connecting with young readers and writers! She offers author presentations, writing workshops, and keynote speeches for schools, libraries, bookstores, and other venues. Her author presentations often focus on a particular book (The Night Diary for example) and how to use our lives to create stories, how to write about identity and family history, how to use food in fiction, her writing process, and her path to getting published. She also enjoys leading smaller interactive writing workshops for both children and adults. Her school presentations and workshops are usually 45 minutes. A full day school visit includes three presentations. She also does virtual visits on many platforms such as Zoom, Skype, or Google Meet. 

Due to concerns about COVID-19, Veera is only doing virtual school visits and appearances until further notice. To get more information about her fees and to plan a school visit, workshop, or event please send her a message on her contact page!
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Testimonials

​"Veera Hiranandani captivated our students with her presentation of The Night Diary. Her presentation was a beautiful tapestry, weaving her life as a writer with the history of the partition of India, bound with a message of hope. She also came to our school to speak to our Kindergarten through third grade on her humorous series, Phoebe G. Green. Students learned about her life as a writer as well as about the characters and themes in the books. Our students had many questions, and Veera patiently answered them all. I highly recommend her."  -Carolyn Denny, Librarian and Literacy Coach, The Keystone School, San Antonio, TX

"Veera’s workshop on The Night Diary was engaging and educational. She transformed a period of Indian history, often wrought with conflict yet instrumental in defining the country’s identity, into one of hope and promise. Children made deep connections with her as an author, her story of India’s partition, and issues faced by today's refugees. She was an articulate panelist on why all good stories have global appeal and on the fine balance between presenting conflict in a way that is truthful without being traumatic. It was a privilege to have her join us at the Neev Literature Festival in Bangalore, India and we look forward to continuing a partnership with her."  -Kavita Gupta Sabharwal, Co-Founder, Neev Literature Festival/Head, Neev Academy,
​Bangalore, India

"Veera was our guest for our annual author week and book pop-up. In the course of the day she worked with multiple 7th and 8th grade classes with innovative writing workshops that prompted them to dig into their own memories and reflect in writing. Her thoughtful, attentive manner was a great match for our classes and she reached some of our more reluctant writers and readers. We were also lucky to have her speak to our entire middle school community, a discussion that was especially impactful on our sixth graders having recently completed an immigration unit. Teachers and students alike were thrilled with having her on campus for the day and I wholeheartedly recommend her for both small group sessions as well as large presentations."  -Erinn Salge, Head Librarian and History faculty, Morristown-Beard School, Morristown, NJ


"During a recent Zoom visit, our students really enjoyed hearing about how Ms. Hiranandani incorporated her father's story and all of her research into The Night Diary. Many of our students walked away from the experience saying The Night Diary was their favorite book they had read in school this year. One student in particular hated school reading, he struggled to finish our first book, but when he picked up The Night Diary he could not stop reading it. We all really appreciated the opportunity to be able to connect virtually during the pandemic." -Gabby Seligman, 6th Grade Lead Teacher, The Children's School, Atlanta, GA