Reading Festival Author Workshops

We hosted three Author workshops at LSA Library on Tuesday, the culmination of Lancashire's year of events and celebrations at all levels of education on the theme of 'We are Reading'. The day was a joint event organised with St Bedes and Carr Hill schools, with supporting funding from Lancashire County Council and an opportunity to bring together all of our students who successfully took part in reading and writing challenges over the past Year. 

Editor and YA author Non Pratt kicked off the day with a masterclass in character writing with Mr Prescott's Year 7 students and our 'we are reading' winners from 2018. Non's cleverly designed group activities and readings engaged and delighted everyone in a workshop packed with advice and debate about the key elements of successful character creation.

MA Griffin's workshop brought together two Year 10 sets to look at two separate aspects of writing. Firstly, he looked at the key steps to get into writing as a career choice and gave examples of how his pitches worked with publishers. The second half of his presentation looked specifically at the creative writing aspect of the students English GCSE exam. Martin's extensive teaching experience ensured that the session was of real practical use to everyone who attended, whilst his success with publishers provided inspiration for potential writers in the room.

The final event of the day was Alan Gibbon's tremendous presentation to four of our Year 7 English classes. Alan is one of Britain's most experienced and successful children's writers and he took our readers on a wonderful journey through his life and work. It was often hilarious, packed with wonderful music but ultimately delivered a very strong moral message to students about the social and ethical nature of his writing and how social and political events in the real world have driven his life's work. It was a very inspiring message to both students and staff.

Year 7 top readers and students received signed copies of our guests' books on the day to inspire their love of reading and writing. Thanks to our students who fully engaged with their workshops, Carr Hill, St Bede's, LSA English and the Library and of course Lancashire County Council and We Are Reading.