Farley to lead writers’ workshop

Terri Farley will be the final presenter in the Churchill County Museum’s fall series on Nevada authors.

She will speak from 5:30-7:30 at the museum on 1050 S. Maine St.

Farley is the author of “Wild at Heart: Mustangs and the Young People Fighting to Save Them,” a work of narrative non-fiction featuring science, history and eye-witness accounts of America’s wild horses. She’s also written the Phantom Stallion series for middle-grade readers, and “Seven Tears into the Sea,” a contemporary Celtic young adult fantasy.

A former secondary school English teacher and a founding member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ mentor program, Farley has taught and presented in classrooms and at conferences across the United States and Canada. She has been honored by the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and more than 2 million copies of her books have sold across 28 countries.

Farley works regularly with young people to help them learn how to make their voices heard, and is the instigator of the Authoring Change campaign, which supports a number of humane and literacy organizations. She is also an advocate for the protection of the West’s wild horses.

Farley uses a variety of practical exercises developed over many years of leading workshops to help writers mine their own memories for details of forgotten events. Then, with these past experiences fresh in their minds, they are able to access stories only they can tell. As they learn to write “from their roots,” they can imagine and put into words vivid characters, settings, and scenarios, and make their writing more memorable by putting emphasis on senses. Drawing on the work of Gabrielle Rico (author of Writing the Natural Way), Farley also leads participants to discover the power of “clustering techniques” and “the power of three,” illustrating that using three supporting facts or details adds power to a piece of writing.