Tara Crossley-Holland

Ok, I promise, it is not what you think. I did not fall in love with someone with the last name of Crossley-Holland and I have not resorted to testing out my name with his. It is not like that.

To preface, in art I gave a presentation on the Rococo period a few weeks ago. I think I mentioned that briefly, but I may not have mentioned that I gave almost the entire presentation in a fake french (ish) accent. Or that I had an entirely original (at least I would imagine) pronunciation of the term "rococo." That being said, the class seemed to enjoy the presentation to some extent. I also showed a clip from "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and obviously that alone would make it the best presentation ever because who doesn't love Percy?!

Now to the real story. In English, I had a presentation on YA lit author Kevin Crossley-Holland. In preparing for this, I was feeling some pressure to give a delivery like I did for the Rococo presentation. I could not think of a single clever or humorous thing to do. What was I to do in such a predicament? Such a dilemma. But I finally decided to just go with the tried and trusted presentation tactic of "dress up like the person you are presenting as and have them come as a guest." So that is what I did, more or less. Without a Savers or DI close by, I did the best I could. Which involved large amount of baby powder. To whiten my hair, of course.

I whitened my hair, pulled it back in a bun, introduced myself as Kevin Crossley-Holland and gave a brief synopsis of my (his) life, all in accent of course. It took me a minute to work into a natural British accent with a hint of northern England. It got even trickier when I read an excerpt from my (his) book, The Bracelet of Bones, and had to be a British man reading the part of a Viking man. Things were getting complicated. It was a relief to turn the time back over to "Tara" for the remainder of the presentation.

Though, perhaps not quite "rococo" I think that I still managed not to disgrace myself entirely. Well, I guess that depends on your definition of "disgrace." In this instance it means, "to not give an entirely boring presentation on a boring author all while speaking in an accent." My Professor then later referred to me as "Tara Crossley-Holland." So at least he remembered who my author was!