VISITING WRITERS

At Sacred Heart we work hard to provide an engaging and entertaining program of author events throughout the year. Using our connections with local bookshops and working directly with publishers, students are able to meet authors, gain an insight into writing careers and learn about their processes from initial ideas all the way to published novels. Students are also able to get signed copies of books either at the event or through pre-orders, allowing them to build up a varied personal library over their time at Sacred Heart. 

 
Here are just some of the authors we have welcomed to our school in the past: 

 

• Katherine Woodfine 

• Angie Thomas 

• Holly Jackson 

• Lucy Powrie 

• Emma Carroll 

• Cathy Cassidy

• Sinead O’Hart 

• Eloise Williams 

• Catherine Barter 

• Lauren James 

• Holly Smale 

• Siobhan Curham 

• Bryony Gordon

​

FESTIVAL OF READING:

To celebrate our Festival of Reading in the summer term, we were very lucky to invite three authors to talk to our students in Year 7, 8, 9 and 10.  The authors shared with us their journeys as writers, their writing processes and answered our students’ excellent questions. 

​

Yvonne Banham visited Year 8 on Monday the 12th of June to talk about The Dark and Dangerous Gifts of Delores Mackenzie. She talked about her writing space and snoring beagle. We were shown the locations in Edinburgh that inspired her writing. She asked us how we felt about reading creepy books and if monsters could be unscary. I can’t wait to see what Delores does in her next adventure.

​

Prize-winning author Danielle Jawando visited Year 9 and 10 on Wednesday 21st June. She talked about her latest book, When our World’s Collided and about her experience as a writer on Coronation Street. Danielle discussed diversity in children’s books and how representation is important in her writing. We should all have the opportunity to see ourselves and the places we know represented in the books we read. 

​

Lisette Auton visited our Year 7s on Thursday 22nd July. Lisette talked about the inspiration she sees in everything around her and about how place is important to her writing. Inspired by Lisette’s writing process and imagination the Year 7s shared interesting objects they might keep in a beard (a croissant or a pigeon included) and they drafted their very own whimsical story.