A number of budding authors from the Totara Team visited the Auckland Writers Festival recently.   Some of the students have collaborated to share their thoughts from the day.

On the 16th of May 2017, sixteen of Grey Lynn School’s students attended the writer’s festival. The writers' talks that we attended were David Hill, Frances Hardinge, Lauren Child and Glenn Colquhoun. It was an amazing experience. It was phenomenal see all the authors who were once children like us that have evolved into experienced authors and are now well known in the writing community. They were all incredible and they made you want you to read their books. 

My opinion on David Hill

David Hill is a very descriptive writer that sets a firm and solid image of the story in your mind. He writes very vivid and real stories (though some aren’t real) about many things. He talked to us about his war stories, which were mostly based on his family and friends, except for Deadly Sky, which was about a nuclear war which never happened. He was one of my favourites, right up there with Frances Hardinge.

All his books gave me a different view of the war. He seemed to know all about his subject, and made me think about the world. He must have put a lot of effort into researching his book. He really captured my attention, dragging me into wanting to read his books.  With his books one could really delve into the writer's world, feel the character's emotions and feel pain for the characters if they are injured or someone is dead. Many other writers find this impossible to capture and grasp, which makes you unwilling to trudge through forests, or go tramping over waterfalls. This is one of David’s many talents. I think he is an interesting man, and would be happy to see him again. - Zephyr

A bit about Lauren Child

Lauren Child was the last of the four writers to speak to us. She spoke about one of her series called Ruby Redfort. She is also the author of the Clarice Bean series, Charlie and Lola, Ruby Redfort and much more.  

Lauren Child writes about a person in first person about her/his life, the struggles and the good things and of course you can’t forget their feelings. She talked about all the characters in Ruby Redfort and how she came up with her ideas. Did you know Ruby was inspired by the James Bond series. So you can just get ideas from another book except you can’t copy them entirely. - Manutaeao

Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge was my personal favourite as she described her books very passionately and made your really want to read her books.

The first book she described was called Cuckoo Song. It was a mix of horror, fantasy and thriller all in one and it was set in Victorian times.  Frances spoke of her fears being the inspiration behind the books she writes. Frances said that she wrote about her fears because she wanted to give them to you because she’s nice like that.

Frances Hardinge was the author that I was least looking forward to because I didn’t know much about her books and writing. But now I think she is one of my favourite authors. I highly recommend Frances Hardinge.

- Elliot

Glen Calhoun

We didn’t get to see all of Glenn’s show because we came in late but from what we did see he seemed quite interesting and I liked how he let the audience contribute by letting them sing the chorus of his poem. Though my favourite bit of his show was certainly his poem, since it was interesting and well written and it was obvious he had put aside a lot of time to work on it. The chorus when like this “Heigh-ho-heigh-ho how the wind blows how the wind blows how the wind blows over Foveaux. " His show was good, unfortunately we did not get to see his entire show.

- Finch

Overall, we thought the Writer’s Festival was a once in a lifetime experience. It was full of very helpful tips and fun and exciting language.  I hope to use the author's writing tips in the near future. It also persuaded us to read the author's books. We would all agree that we would love to go back in the near future. 

Now, we would like to thank all the people that made this happen. Liz our school librarian has been a very big help because she organised the whole thing from organising tickets and helping with transport. There were 3 chaperones Libby Bird (Zephyr’s Mum), Barbs Neil (Elliot’s Mum), and finally Jacqui Watson (Jamie's Mum). They helped with transport and took time out of their busy mum schedule to take us. We say a big “ THANK YOU!” to these parents.