S.A. Schneider's Blog

I wanted to send out a quick notice for all the teachers and homeschool parents. Each year, I like to visit schools to talk with the kids. Not just talking to them about being an author, but I love to do workshops with them. Hands on where they learn something and are doing an activity. One of the bigger workshops I run is video game storytelling. I love this workshop and the kids have a great time at it. The other workshop I love to run is a story structure interactive discussion. In it, I talk with the kids about ideas for creating stories and how to put those ideas into the 3 story structure parts – Beginning, Middle, End. Once done, the stories are finished based on those ideas and available for the kids and others to purchase. The kids have a great time with this, and I’ve gotten feedback that kids were inspired to write their own stories afterwards. That’s exactly what I love to hear! To see an example of the final stories, here’s a book of stories that got written after a session at Southeast Schools in Portage County Ohio – Help an Author. And right now, […]

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It has been awhile since I’ve written, but some exciting things are happening. On my website, I’ve been adding information like all the discussion questions and words to know for my stories. I’m trying to make it helpful for teachers and homeschool to use these stories in their lessons. Get them at:https://sa-schneider.com Also, if you haven’t seen my YouTube channel, I’ve been adding more videos as tutorials with ideas for various writing activities. With the Choose Your Own Adventure tutorial videos, I’m working on a CYOA to release at Halloween. It will feature Mason from the Oddish Questors (more on this series later), you’ll have to check it out. New BooksReleasing next week is the 2nd book in the Town Magician series – Transgression of Magic. Cover art by Thom Zahler once again. This time, young Samual has parental issues to deal with – but it’s not what he expects. The book is available for pre-order: https://amzn.to/4fxKE1c​ What would help a whole lot is downloads and reviews of the short story prequels. I would really appreciate it and this would help others discover the series. Both of these are free to download and more reviews would be great:Clarise and the Night […]

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Welcome to all my new friends from the Columbus Book Fest! What a great event – over 42,000 people this year! Hope you found some great new books to read. Upcoming this weekend is the Kecksburg UFO festival. It’s a fun fest and some great speakers on Sunday. I’ll be there with my books – including previews of the upcoming Oddish Questors books. Keep an eye on the website as I’m making it easier to find all the educational resources. The new Town Magician 2: Transgression of Magic and Oddish Questors 1: The Bigfoot Case will be available soon. Those on this list will have a chance to get it first, including the typical teacher specials. Please share this email and encourage any other parents and teachers to sign up to this list. If you have any suggestions for needed resources or having me visit your school to run a workshop, please contact me at sas@sasauthor.com. As always – Enjoy the Adventure!

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I have some exciting items to talk about, so I won’t waste time. Let’s go. Gran TurismoFirst, did you see the Gran Turismo movie? If you have a gamer in your life, you should see it. Video games are changing the world, and many parents don’t realize it. I talk about video game story telling quite a bit and have taught classes to show kids how they can make video games now. This can lead to a career later. This movie is another piece of that. Take a look at my review and check out the movie.​https://www.sa-schneider.com/author/g...​ Why Teach Video Game StorytellingSince I mentioned my classes, I get asked why I teach video game storytelling and why I feel it’s important for parents to understand this opportunity for kids. I wrote up my thoughts and you can check them out here:​https://www.sa-schneider.com/author/w...​ New CYOA articleI finally have the third article done in my CYOA series! YAY! This is a series of articles to help parents and educators create a Choose Your Own Adventure book with their kids.​Check them out!IllustoryAnd if you didn’t see my earlier series about Illustory, this is a great project to work on with the kids. It allows […]

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These are discussion questions compiled from each chapter. There is also a study guide available that includes Discussion Questions and Words to Know for Embracing the Magic and the short stories: Clarise and the Night Show and Faking the Magic. Chapter 1 & 2 : Wizard Battle & NextWhat type of person is Morzul?Why do you think he is conquering so many towns?Describe Morzul – not just what he looks like, but his personality.What do you think the amulets do?Morzul uses magic – what spells does he cast? Chapter 3 & 4 : The Performance & It Doesn’t Go RightAfter reading chapter 1 and 2, what would you guess might happen in the story?Why does Samual say that Rory can’t do magic? Can Samual do magic? (see the short story Faking the Magic)Samual sees Rory faking the magic – why don’t you think the adults notice it?What do the villagers think of Rory? Chapter 5 : After the ShowWhy can’t Samual prove that Rory is a fake?Do you think Mr. Robers is correct and the Town Magician will protect them when needed?The amulet is mentioned and Rory must have it. Do you think it is helping him to be a […]

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Below is the Words to Know section from the first Town Magician book. These are words used in the story and gathered in one place to help teachers and parents see them easily. Feel free to use this list with your kids and look for them in Embracing the Magic. Throughout the story, there may be some words that you haven’t seen before. I have tried to define these words below. Please, look these up in a dictionary to get the official definition. I’ve also provided the sentence where the word appears for context.For a complete study guide, visit sa-schneider.com. Squalid – yucky, shabby and worn, dirtyHis booming voice stopped, his brow creased as he leaned toward the fallen man. “What is this squalid little town’s name?” Hitherto – means until now, until this pointI must attend other towns, but I will return in one week to honor you with a spectacle unlike any you have hitherto witnessed. Carnage – everything’s destroyedAs the shards pelted the closest onlookers, they shrieked and pushed to get away from the carnage. Plonked – a great word, like if an acorn bounced off your head – I imagine it would sound like ‘Plonk’Rory found […]

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Below is the Words to Know section from the first Town Magician book. These are words used in the story and gathered in one place to help teachers and parents see them easily. Feel free to use this list with your kids and look for them in Embracing the Magic. Throughout the story, there may be some words that you haven’t seen before. I have tried to define these words below. Please, look these up in a dictionary to get the official definition. I’ve also provided the sentence where the word appears for context.For a complete study guide, visit sa-schneider.com. Squalid – yucky, shabby and worn, dirtyHis booming voice stopped, his brow creased as he leaned toward the fallen man. “What is this squalid little town’s name?” Hitherto – means until now, until this pointI must attend other towns, but I will return in one week to honor you with a spectacle unlike any you have hitherto witnessed. Carnage – everything’s destroyedAs the shards pelted the closest onlookers, they shrieked and pushed to get away from the carnage. Plonked – a great word, like if an acorn bounced off your head – I imagine it would sound like ‘Plonk’Rory found […]

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I know many of you know about my Town Magician series. Book 2 is coming out and I’m looking ahead to book 3, but also other projects. The project most near and dear to my heart is The Oddish Questors. The Oddish Questors are a group of siblings that investigate paranormal events – Bigfoot sightings, Wendigo and even witches. Each has a particular skill they use to help the investigations. Here’s a brief about them: Who and what are the Oddish Questors? They are a group of siblings that investigate things paranormal. Think of the X-files meets the Scooby Doo gang, but not solving mysteries with fake ghosts. They look into the weird, strange and unusual in our world.They weren’t always siblings. Mama G found them and brought them all together because each one of them were orphans with special gifts. Their early adventures are described in Young Oddish Questors.Since their father disappeared, they have pursued the supernatural in the hopes of figuring out what happened to him. This keeps them together and they’ve encountered many cryptids and unique situations in this pursuit. Freddy – Freddy is the oldest and the showman. He’s a kid at heart, which can get […]

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I’m normally not one to read westerns. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have found some western stories to be great reads, it’s just not my enjoyable genre of choice. So why did I pick this one up? First, it mentions the Anasazi. Since my Scouting days, I’ve had a bit of interest in the Native Americans and their beliefs. The Anasazi are a mystery similar to Roanoke. It’s a real mystery and I’m a writer, it’s natural I’d find it intriguing. Just the fact that the book has a major focus on the Anasazi disappearance was enough to get me to pick it up. As I read it, things got even more interesting because it was obviously touching on the quantum realm. With my other interest of paranormal and supernatural (as shown in the Oddish Questor series), this became more exciting. Was the great western writer going to write a story about other worlds? Maybe touch a bit on Asimov genre territory? Well, he does, but not quite enough. This is a long book. The hardback probably was close to 600 pages. And this brings up my problem with this story. If you’ve not enjoyed Stephen King or J.R.R. […]

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