Every year the Marlborough Book Festival funds schools to have the opportunity to host authors alongside the Festival programme.

When students get the opportunity to meet authors it can spur an interest not only to read their books but also in writing them. It fosters creativity and an enjoyment of the arts.

This year we were fortunate to have three authors visit. Gavin Lang, a mountaineer, photographer and author, spoke to our Adventure Marlborough class. Christina Lang and Eileen Merriman both write adult and young adult novels and spoke to some English classes.

Matilda Phelps was lucky enough to hear both authors read their books and also attended a poetry workshop in the morning. 

 “Me and three other students attended a poetry workshop hosted at the Marlborough Library as part of the Book Festival. Joanna Preston, an award winning poetry author, walked us through some of her poetry and a couple exercises to write our own poetry. The workshop helped to expand my knowledge of poetry and my ability to write it and was very enjoyable."

"Later in the day, my classes attended a talk by author Christina Sanders, who talked about how important telling stories from a female perspective is, as well as her book, "Mrs Jewell and the wreck of the General Grant" which was very cool.

Then, following that, was a talk from very popular author Eileen Merriman. She talked about her books which was super interesting, as well as a bit about her process and how she writes.”