(Here’s a film about the Young Writers’ Festival that First Story organises…)
Now it’s all confirmed, I thought I’d do a quick blog about my Writer in Residency for First Story.
They’re a great charity, who organise residencies in schools across the country (70 now, I think) and believe in the power of writing to change lives. Which is good, because I do too.
So I’ll be running 16 workshops with young people at the Bridge Learning Campus in Hartcliffe – the programme involves us exploring different writing techniques and approaches, then developing the work into one of their excellent anthologies by the end of the academic year.
For me, this is one of those times when ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ really crosses over with the practice of, err, ‘Writing for Writing’. While we’ll be doing plenty of imaginative writing, I think that there’s huge scope to facilitate young people to start finding their voices, worlds within worlds, and the rich textures of everyday life. I’m so looking forward to starting that adventure with them!
This afternoon, I’ll be off to meet the young people and enthuse them about the programme – wish me luck! And watch this space for updates.