In March some of our students travelled to Downing College, Cambridge University to attend the First Story Young Writer Festival.

The guest author was Manjeet Mann who took part in a question and answer session where some lucky students were able to put their questions to her before the floor was opened and everyone was invited to speak. Manjeet answered everyone’s questions in great depth, providing us with glimpses of her life as a child, her journey into becoming a writer, via acting and scriptwriting and she told us what influences her stories, she also handed out some sage advice for budding writers.

Our morning workshop was hosted by the British born Cypriot poet, Anthony Anaxagorou. Winner of the SLAMbassadors UK rap poetry competition and founder of the Out-Spoken, a monthly poetry and live music night based on the Southbank in London. We spent the morning writing poetry based on a collection of words given by Anthony.

Anthony was impressed with the resulting poem from one of our students and she was invited to perform on stage at the Showcase event.

After lunch Manjeet Mann singed our books and had a chat with each of our students before we went to have a tour of the university and the grounds.

The afternoon workshop was hosted by Kerry Drewery, the author of the award-winning Young Adult series ‘Cell 7’ along with a number of other novels. Kerry helped our students write a detective novel, including inventing a character name.

At the showcase event many students were eager to read out the work that they had produced that day. A competition for all attendees was announced which is sponsored by Quentin Blake, the world renowned artist and author.