Jess Galatola
![Jess Galatola](/images/speakers/5836/jess-galatola2.jpg)
Jess is a Drama/English teacher, senior curriculum advisor and the author of children’s books. She loves adventures, living by the bay and singing (loudly) along to the radio, while driving kids to school. Jess believes that reading is the key to every child’s success and that picture books are magical gateways to early literacy. She writes stories from the heart that address big themes and feelings. Her background in pastoral care and educational leadership has guided her to write books that place children and their experiences at the centre of her stories.
|
![]() |
Jess’s debut picture book, Some Families Change, gently explores family structures and difficult changes, helping children make sense of change by validating and acknowledging their feelings. Jess loves writing picture books, short stories, poetry and plays. She believes in empowering young people by giving voice to their experiences and inspiring their love of reading and writing. She has workshopped her book successfully with students of all ages.
Jess is an engaging presenter who can tailor sessions for audiences of children or adults, for a wide range of lessons, events and contexts. She transforms stories through interactive and creative learning experiences, such as Process Drama, that appeal to all learners. Sessions for adult audiences focus on her acquired knowledge and understanding of writing for the children’s publishing industry, fostering relationships with industry experts, finding writing inspiration and building an author brand and community.
Books:
2024 Some Families Change
2025 The Little Breeze
2026 Words Stick
Early Childhood / Kindy Workshops
Jess will engage little readers through a combination of drama games, art, and music activities, with a family focus. She will read her debut picture book, ‘Some Families Change’ and break down the themes in an age appropriate way. Jess knows how to pace learning activities in short, sweet segments to balance engagement, learning and fun.
Early Primary School Workshops
Jess is happy to design workshops around learning areas. There are several areas of the Australian Curriculum best suited to her story, ‘Some Families Change’. The Foundation curriculum focuses on developing students' understanding of their personal worlds, including their personal and family histories and the places they and their families live in and belong to. The emphasis is on the student's own history and their own place. Jess can integrate learning activities linked to the family theme of her book within learning areas such as English, HASS and the Arts.
Upper Primary School Workshops
In the upper primary years, Jess is happy to design workshops within English and the Arts with a focus on creative processes. In English, this may be around creative writing styles and techniques and in arts such as Drama/Visual Art, this could look like a discussion of picture book processes, techniques and development.
Secondary School Workshops
Jess has 15 years+ experience teaching Drama, English and Arts Curriculum in high schools.
English: Jess will work within the English curriculum to tailor workshops around the craft of creative writing. This includes creative writing techniques and a discussion of stylistic and aesthetic devices, audience, and context.
Drama: Jess has designed a Process Drama titled, Some Families Change, that combines themes of family, change and resilience, explored through dramatic elements, conventions and action that will assist students to process these universal themes. This workshop would fit in with units around Physical Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Process Drama, Story Telling, Play building and Dramaturgy.
Visual Art/Media Arts: Jess can use her book as a way into picture book units that examine visual art or Media Arts processes and elements. Jess will examine story boarding, design and layout, placing words on a page, conceptual illustration notes and picture book aesthetics.
Co-curricular workshops:
Jess can work within co-curricular contexts to shape workshops for particular purposes. This may involve after school care programs, art workshops, author in residence programs etc. She can work within her teaching areas and author experience to shape learning experiences that link to industry skills. In her work with senior curriculum, she is also across syllabus documents and is happy to work unit objectives into her workshops and programs.
Author Workshops:
Jess’s Author Workshop package is interactive and fun. She introduces herself, her background and personal experiences with writing, teaching, and performing. Jess will read ‘Some Families Change’ and workshop the themes with students in engaging and relevant ways. She provides information about the children’s publishing industry, as well as fun writer tips about getting started with creative writing. She uses images, videos, storytelling and games, to explain the writing process and help inspire kids to have a go at creative writing.
PD Sessions for Teachers – how to get kids excited about literacy:
Jess will combine her experience as a children’s author, teacher, curriculum advisor and performer to assist teachers in creating engaging, challenging and relevant curriculum activities that are fun, practical and engaging. Jess will address the interrelated strands of the National Curriculum: language, literature and literacy, to help teachers think about ways of bridging the literacy gap for students. This includes using dramatic action to help the most reluctant readers have a go at reading and writing. Her sessions include handouts and workshop activities that teachers can model for their own students, to bring the curriculum to life for young learners.
Writing Picture Books – a workshop for aspiring writers
Writing picture books involves creativity, discernment, and discipline. Jess has learned much about this specific genre on her author journey and in this workshop, combines her knowledge with practical, hands-on activities to help future writers hone their skills. She will discuss the kids’ publishing space and offer advice on approaching, working and fostering relationships with a publisher, building an author brand, marketing, and event planning. Jess is passionate about the Kid Lit community and is keen to share her experiences and insights.
Testimonials
My Kindergarten children love to meet all different people in all different jobs and roles, so they were beyond excited to have a real life author coming to Kindy to share their book. Jess had such a wonderful presence with the group and was so engaging with each and every child. The activities she had planned were perfect for our age group and resulted in a lot of laughter and squeals of fun! The children were so proud to share their work and the illustrations they created, and some have even been inspired to create their own little story books about families. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us, Jess. It's invaluable for children of this age to have positive experiences such as this with people from our wider community. We hope to see you again!
Moorooka Early Learning Centre, May 2024As part of our Imaginative Writing unit, we interviewed Australian children’s author, Jess Galatola about her relevant and timely children’s book, ‘Some Families Change’. This book was a wonderful read and a totally engaging juncture for our students as it brought the curriculum to life. Jess provided so many purposeful and practical strategies to our young and aspiring writers.
Cairns State High School, April 2024
Some Families Change
Queensland
Speaker type
- Author
- Storyteller / Performer
- Virtual visits
Links
![available for virtual visits](/images/available-for-skype.png)