Treat your students and staff to an unforgettable author visit with national author and award-winning wildlife photographer Michael Patrick O’Neill!

His presentations are described as the “best ever” and encourage people to fall in love with nature, conservation, reading, writing and photography. 

He is a gifted speaker who will entertain, educate and inspire your kids and take them along on his thrilling adventures, from swimming with a Great White Shark to photographing jaguars in the Brazilian rainforest—and nearly everything in between. 

Michael is the author of eight ocean books and world renowned wildlife photographer who has presented to more than 500,000 people in schools, museums, libraries and universities in 27 states. 

His work has been featured in the Discovery Channel, National Geographic (all magazines and TV channel), NHK (Japan’s public TV station), The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine, the Journal Nature and many other prominent media outlets. 

His photos have won the most prestigious competitions, including Wildlife Photographer of the Year, World Press Photo, and Pictures of the Year International (Missouri School of Journalism), to name a few.

His presentation theme is storytelling with images and words and how he creates his photo essays and write his books and magazine articles—all explained in a simple, fun way so kids of all ages can understand, learn and enjoy. If possible, grades K-2 should be grouped in the same assemblies, and grades 3+ on their own.

He prefers to limit the size of each assembly to no more than 200 children, and they should take place in a room (e.g., library, auditorium, etc.) where the lights can be dimmed so the projected images look their best. 

His equipment requirements (provided by the school) include a quality LCD projector, mike and large screen. He brings his own laptop, loaded with his Keynote presentation.

Parallel to his school assemblies, Michael has developed a popular writing workshop to teach the fundamentals of compelling and engaging writing. This workshop, which he has presented to students from third grade to university level, emphasizes the basics such as reading, vocabulary, tone, and audience, among other topics. During the workshop, he describes how he storyboards his books and writes his popular magazine articles. To have the most successful outcome for this activity, he prefers to limit the size of the group to no more than 30 students (grades 3 and higher).

Please note that recording his school assemblies and writing workshops is not permitted.

To find out more about Michael’s assemblies, including availability, appearances and rates, please contact him using this form.

Book Orders for School Assemblies

Whenever he visits a school, Michael makes his books available to anyone who wishes to purchase a signed and personalized copy or copies. He has a very efficient system for handling book orders and supplies all books. Photo below: Michael with signed books ready to go to a school assembly.

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