APPLY TO HOST CHARIS COTTER (IN PERSON)
BIOGRAPHY
Charis Cotter grew up beside a graveyard and has been living with ghosts ever since. She studied English in university and went to drama school in London, England. Charis is the multi-award-winning author of thirteen novels and picture books, including The Swallow, The Ghost Road, Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland, and The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall. Charis has worked extensively in schools and libraries from coast to coast, using drama and storytelling to bring her books to life. Her performances of Newfoundland ghost stories have thrilled audiences of all ages, from Florida to Vancouver Island. She lives at the end of a road beside the ocean, in one of the most haunted parts of Newfoundland, Canada.
Home Location: Western Bay, Newfoundland
Creator Type: Author
Genres: Picture books, middle-grade fiction
Website: chariscotter.com
Tour Region: Ontario (Windsor and surrounding area)
Target Audience: Grades 4 - 6
Cost: For one 60-minute presentation: $300 plus 13% HST
NOTE: The fee of $300 (plus tax) will be paid to The Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) upon receipt of an invoice from the CCBC. After Book Week, the CCBC will pay the author their presentation fee of $250 (plus taxes, if applicable).
PRESENTATION DESCRIPTIONS
Newfoundland Ghost Stories Presentation
Target Audience: Grades 4 - 6
Maximum group size: 125 students
A school visit from multi-award winning author Charis Cotter and a host of Newfoundland ghosts! She’ll take your students on a creepy tour of the most haunted island in the world, showing how traditional ghost stories reflect the landscape, culture and history of Newfoundland. She helps students identify “culture clues” – story details that reveal how people lived and what they believed at the time of the story.
For some reason, Newfoundland has more ghosts than anywhere else. Ghosts in the ocean, ghosts on the barrens, ghosts in lighthouses, and ghosts at kitchen parties. Some stories go back hundreds of years, like the Old Hollies, said to be the victims of shipwrecks, who are heard screaming in the wind just before a bad storm. Charis tells a very old story about a ghostly longboard glimpsed in the fog near Baccalieu Island and describes an unsettling experience she had herself on the barrens one dark Newfoundland night. Charis ends with a spine-chilling account of ghostly footsteps in Bay de Verde in the 1920s.
Charis writes spooky novels and ghost stories for middle-grade readers Grades 4 to 6. Her latest novel, The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall, has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers’ Weekly. Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland won the Hackamatack Children’s Choice Award in 2022, and Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A Mysterious Tale won the Newfoundland Book Award for Children’s Literature in 2022.
This interactive presentation features storytelling from these last two books, a Q&A, a discussion guide, and a ghost-story challenge for students to collect their own ghost stories from families and friends.
Curriculum connections: Language Arts ∙ Reading and Listening ∙ Heritage and Culture ∙ Spiritual Beliefs
Required equipment: a table and a chair in a room where students can sit on the floor, and if available, a room where the blinds can be shut to make it as dark as possible. Preferably NOT a gym.
Required materials: N/A
The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall Presentation
Target Audience: Grades 4 - 6
Maximum group size: 60 students
Multi-award-winning author Charis Cotter visits your school with her latest spooky novel, The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall. Set in a bird-watching summer camp in 1960, this book is a love song to summer camp, deep friendships and ghosts. Charis begins with some questions for the students about their secret superpower aspirations, why people are scared of the dark, and their camping experience. Then she reads a spine-chilling excerpt from the book, followed by a brief discussion of the scariest ghost story she heard at camp. Charis ends with two Newfoundland ghost stories: one that happened to her on the barrens one night, and the classic tale that inspired her book Footsteps in Bay de Verde.
This interactive presentation features storytelling from all these books, a Q&A, a discussion guide, and a ghost-story challenge for students to collect their own ghost stories from families and friends.
Required equipment: a table and a chair in a room where students can sit on the floor, and if available, a room where the blinds can be shut to make it as dark as possible. Preferably NOT a gym.
Required materials: N/A
QUESTIONS FOR CHARIS
Since question-and-answer time may be limited during the presentations, if students have more questions for Charis about her writing or the ghost stories she told, one set of questions from each class can be sent via email to Charis. Students are also welcome to look at her website to find out more about Charis and her books. chariscotter.ca
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall. Tundra Books, Penguin Random House Cda, 2025
The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story. Tundra Books, 2021
Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland. Art by Genevieve Simms. Nimbus, 2020
Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A Mysterious Tale. Ill. by Jenny Dwyer. Running the Goat, 2020
The Ghost Road. Tundra Books, 2018
The Painting. Tundra Books, 2017
The Ghosts of Southwest Arm. Editor and publisher. Baccalieu Books, 2017
The Ferryland Visitor: A Mysterious Tale. Ill by Gerald L. Squires. Running the Goat, 2016
The Swallow: A Ghost Story. Tundra Books, 2014
The Ghosts of Baccalieu. Editor and publisher. Baccalieu Books, 2013
A World Full of Ghosts. Art by Marc Mongeau. Annick Press, 2009
Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors. Annick Press, 2008
Wonder Kids: The Remarkable Lives of Nine Child Prodigies. Annick Press, 2008
Kids Who Rule: The Remarkable Lives of Five Child Monarchs. Annick Press, 2007
Toronto Between the Wars: Life in the City 1919–1939. Firefly Books, 2004