Students at the Melbourne Writers Festival

On Monday 28 August, ten students (five Year 7s and five Year 8s) plus Mr Kress and Ms Agius took an early flight out of Hobart and arrived in Melbourne for the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF).

MWF is a festival of various workshops and sessions with different authors teaching those who attend ideas about ways to improve their writing.

We attended six sessions. The first was titled “Letter to my Teenage Self” with authors Shaun Tan and Grace Halphen. The second was called “Word Building” held with fantasy writer, Garth Nix.

Later we also enjoyed a session called “The Writing’s on the Wall” where we were given a tour of some of the amazing street art of Melbourne.

The next day, after a buffet breakfast we participated in another three sessions. “What’s Your Story” was with author Alice Pung (with our group, left).

“Short Stories” was held with Jessica Yu and Cate Kennedy.

Our third was “Slam Poetry” where we watched many people perform and convey important messages through the art of poetry.

Each session was very interesting. We all learnt a lot and are extremely grateful to have been given the experience.

We would like to thank Mr Kress and Ms Agius for taking us and Mrs Marcenko for coordinating the trip.

We would also like to thank our local politicians for their generous support in helping sponsor this amazing trip.

Thanks to Elise Archer, Andrew Wilkie, Matthew Groom, Madeleine Ogilvie, Scott Bacon, Cassy O’Connor and Josh Willie.

Maddi Cockerill, Libby Baker, Sarah Fulton, Anit Saju and Aliya Wilson