St Mary’s Calne is delighted to be supporting the Telegraph’s Bath Children’s Literature Festival and to be a sponsor of the Malorie Blackman event on Friday 4th October at The Guildhall in Bath.
As part of St Mary’s Calne sponsorship of The Telegraph Bath Children’s Literature Festival, we were delighted to welcome the festival’s Guest Artistic Director, author David Almond, to St Mary’s Calne on Monday 30th September.
David Almond is the author of Skellig, My Name is Mina, The Savage, The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf, and many other novels, stories and plays. David is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and innovative children’s authors writing today. His work is translated into over 40 languages and is widely adapted for stage and screen. His many awards include The Carnegie Medal, two Whitbreads and The Hans Christian Andersen Award 2010, the world’s most prestigious prize for children’s authors. He is also Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
David spoke to St Mary’s Year 7 and 8, as well as children from visiting prep schools St Margaret’s, Port Regis, Marlston House, Hanford and All Hallows. His talk explored the nature of the imagination and how it is something that we all possess, which he demonstrated by getting the audience to imagine a ‘baby David Almond’ going ‘goo goo’ over a printing press. He explained that his love of words and printing began as a baby and everyone, from his parents, teachers, other authors and the library, helped him to become a writer. The excitement of seeing his work published was something that everyone could relate too and his love of everything to do with the process of writing from the pens and paper to the finished article was infectious.
He read an excerpt from the famous Skellig – now available in a special 15th anniversary edition – and took a huge number of questions from the children about where he gets his ideas and inspiration from. He also asked the children about who their favourite authors are, and was impressed by their love of reading, and asked them to come up with ideas for a story on the spot which they all did admirably well.
He took the time to sign a large amount of books for the children – and staff! – and everyone left the talk feeling that we all have the potential to be writers as we all possess the wonderful gift of imagination. Head of English at St Mary’s Calne, Mrs Sian Stables, commented:
“David Almond’s talk was really enthralling; you couldn’t hear a pin drop as he painted a picture of himself as a babe-in-arms entranced by the text emerging from the printing machines in the print shop he visited with his mother. He shared his love of books and writing with his young audience and encouraged them to pursue their ambitions to write. The young audience all left inspired and motivated to write.”