It’s July and I’m posting the last entry of my day at the Somerset Literary Festival in March 2018. Thank you, readers, for bearing with me, (I’ve started a new job and the training and learning period has been full time.)
To round off a marvellous day, I rushed from the marquee on the oval up to the room that used to be the Library now called the Senior Learning Centre, and I knew it had air conditioning and comfortable seats. I arrived before the children and took a place at the front of the room. Rachel Spratt was setting up. The first thing she did was draw a sketch on the board of Nanny Piggins. I admire anyone who can draw and my heart cheered. Her young daughter was drawing smiles on the whiteboard.
Summary of my day at Somerset 15th March 2018 – Part Four By Jill Smith©July 2018
1.45 to 2.30 R A Spratt
R.A. Spratt is about to launch the first book in her new series The Peski Kids, The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach. The story of siblings who have to stop fighting with each other for just long enough to fight crime. R.A. Spratt also wrote Friday Barnes, Girl Detective, an eight-part series set in an exclusive boarding school with deeply eccentric staff and students.
She also wrote The Adventures of Nanny Piggins, a nine book series about an impossibly glamorous flying pig who ran away from a circus to become a childcare worker and flagrantly ignore all contemporary theories about healthy eating. R.A. Spratt enjoys getting hate tweets from exasperated readers who claim to be dying of frustration due to the cliff-hanger endings. R.A. has written for 32 different television shows. Even she has trouble remembering what they were all called.
R.A. Spratt lives in Bowral, Australia with her husband and two daughters. She has three chickens and five goldfish, and a desperately needy dog.
The children were younger than in previous sessions and Rachel was loud and grabbed their attention from the start. Before she began the session I whispered to her daughter ‘I bet she’s a great mum!’ She agreed with a nod.
Rachel started by saying she was fabulous, that they should all know that from the start.
Then she explained that she was a children’s writer and TV writer.
She asked the audience if they knew who Nanny Piggins was?
There was a lot of giggling and affirmative answers.
She then asked – who likes books? – who’s your favourite author? She went on to explain about Nanny Piggins. She likes to make the titles self-explanatory – like Nanny Piggins Saves Christmas. She read a little of the story. Then she introduces the characters – Derek, Samantha and Micheal. Pink Pig is 4 feet tall but Boris is a 10-foot dancing Bear!
Where do you get your inspiration from? – Her answer to her own question is that you should treat your brain like a compost bin. Chuck in an idea and it can come out as something you can use.
She got one idea from an awards night, her brother was getting an award. The Deputy Headmaster asked if there was anyone who could play the piano. So she wrote a story that showcases Boris as a ballet dancer.
She brings out her props her ukulele and flute. She runs to the window to yells out at the window. The audience found this hysterical.
She loves Jane Austin, Robin Klien – Halfway across the galaxy turn left!
How does she use her imagination? She does school presentations and works from home she loves dates and chocolates.
Never let having terrible ideas stop you writing. She’s had seventeen books published already and the next one is about to be published.
Brother is rich and she always runs him down. Lots of emotion and drama in her life with a conflict between brother or sister.
So one kid in the audience asked Rachel – how many years have you been crazy?
She baulked briefly then went on in a more serious vein. Comedy writers are really good at lateral thinking, sometimes they cover painful parts of their life. She had a hernia as an infant and was in constant pain. It made her process information differently.
She picked up her ukulele and sang.
She concluded by saying it’s super important to think creatively. Whatever you do in life is problem-solving. Think of all the possibilities.
As the audience left the room I grabbed the chance to say thanks for a wonderful session and get my copy of Friday Barnes Girl Detective signed. This was my last session and I knew when Rachel goes to the bookshop there would be a cue to get her signature. I left the school happy for another dose of writing inspiration.
12.45 to 1.30 Cath Crowley
Cath introduced herself as an author for usually fourteen-year old’s plus. Explaining her books ‘Words in Deep Blue’ and ‘Grafitti Moon’ are for this age bracket. She also admitted that she is nervous public speaking.
In Melbourne you are allowed to be a street artist, taggers just tag their names. Cover designs can change, the yellow can is the first. The other cover is more about the art.
When you get a red pen marking had enough respect to go through and correct. That’s the first edit. She got stuck on a girl in the basement. She deleted it then rewrote it. She deleted the whole book and rewrote it.
Megan Daley is passionate about children’s literature and sharing it with young and old alike. She firmly believes that YA literature is far better than adult literature and that picture books are works of art which should adorn the walls of art galleries and libraries. Megan is a Teacher Librarian and was recently awarded the Qld Teacher Librarian of the Year by The School Library Association of Queensland.
Nikki Parkinson is a former journalist-turned blogger and author. She blogs at award-winning fashion, beauty and lifestyle blog, Styling You. Her first book, Unlock Your Style, was published in 2014 by Hachette Australia. Styling You won the 2015 Queensland micro business Telstra Business Award.
Steph Bowe was born in Melbourne in 1994 and now lives in Queensland with her family. She is the author of Young Adult novels Night Swimming, Girl Saves Boy and All This Could End. She is a Stella Prize Schools Ambassador for Queensland and a 2016 May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust Fellow.
MC – Asks the audience – How many read a blog every day? How many use a blog as a base? (after an impressive show of hands to both questions) Asks the panel -The money side of things – What is the background of the commercial side of blogging?
On the 2nd May, Marion and Jill went to Burleigh Heads Primary School and were delighted to be able to share our experience of being part of a group writing for children with such inquisitive minds. They asked great questions and were happy to see Plinko sitting in the corner of the room on the day.
We offered the students the opportunity to win a copy of our latest anthology through a colouring competition.
two-year term as Laureate.
She began by asking the students who thought books were boring. Then she made a bet with everyone in the audience that every child there who thought this will want to read when they are engaged. She said that publishers spend a lot of money on the covers to get the attention of young readers. Then she suggested that if you want a magic potion, to make you better at school, (up to 15 IQ points better), you can by reading. That readers younger than 24 with every book they read, can increase their IQ and therefore makes you more intelligent.
There are different kinds of wars. She experienced a battle facing bushfires. Where she along with a few friends, only five people, battled a blaze for two days and two nights, till they put it out. She met a blind girl who helped because she could feel the air on her skin, she was able to save the horses, although the sighted people couldn’t see through the black ash in the air, the blind girl could tell the direction the fire was coming from. She wrote a book from experience fighting fires, based on real things. When people are facing their hardest struggles, people do wonderful things.
lonely lady but was never recognised, as WWI ambulance and hospitals were manned by women who never were acknowledged by the war. This woman was a cross between James Bond and Downtown Abbey.
9.15 to 10 Jaclyn Moriarty
I loved how she explained a little about her life but had the kids wondering how she learned to stand up to a bully, and how she learned to swear. This story had the students in the palm of her hand.
prove them wrong and become a writer. She studied law and waited till she became a Lawyer, then she would write a book. She decided she wanted to be a writer in England, she moved to Australia. She was a Lawyer in Sydney when the 2000 Olympics were on. The Olympic Torch relay went past her building. She didn’t want to wait anymore, that was when she decided to try again.
My notes became a bit disjointed at this point as I became as engrossed as Jaclyn’s audience.
Plinko has been preened and fixed up to look her beautiful best for The Ten Penners visit to Burleigh Heads Primary school tomorrow.
jillsmith
