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I took this photo of my fat cat.

For an author of a series called “Scary Tales,” it impossible not to feel a little inspired.

This isn’t the sort of letter I normally share, but boy is it ever relevant to my life lately. This is the time of year when I field many inquiries about my availability for school visits.

For educators who’d like help on that, I’ve posted on the topic many times before . . .

* Quickie overview of a standard visit.

* An author’s perspective, featuring my mantra: Authors don’t do school visits; schools do author visits.

* One Book, One School: Some reflections.

The easiest thing would be to click here on the archive for “school visits” and you’ll find links to all sorts of visits, reflections, complaints, experiences. Read them all and you’ll never want to see me again. It would be like the aversion therapy in “Clockwork Orange.”

Here’s my second oldest brother, Billy with cigarette, on an early 70’s Christmas morning when he received the soundtrack to “A Clockwork Orange.” He remember being a little kid — Billy was ten years older — and listening to him tell me all about that movie. That’s my sister Barbara, left. (Don’t you just love old family photographs?)

Anyway, just in the next two months, I’m looking at trips to MA, CT, NC, SC, and FLA. And I’m in discussion with educators in MI, NJ, CO. It’s a change from my pre-hardcover life, when most of my visits were local. These far-flung visits require a lot more organization from the schools, because I can’t possibly visit a school for one day in, say, Kentucky. It just doesn’t make sense.

Here’s a letter that is somewhat typical.

Hi James -

We’re wondering if you’d be available to visit MI in March 2011.  We’ve tentatively chosen Along Came Spider as our One Book, One City for Kids title, but we’d really like to have the author visit us after the kids have finished reading it.  I think our kids would really enjoy meeting you!

We purchase a paperback copy of our OBOC for Kids title for every 4th grader in the city, hoping that that will help get the word out about how much fun reading can be.  The students start reading in January and then usually have the author visit for a couple days in March, visiting 4 schools.  We’re flexible about the dates, and have run the program from Mar

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