St John’s pupils enjoy a Marlborough LitFest author talk

Last month Marlborough LitFest 2021 organised a final online event for Year 7 pupils at St John’s Academy. Author Anthony McGowan gave two talks to pupils as part of LitFest’s schools outreach programme.

Year 7 pupil, Beatrice Granger, provided a review of the talk she heard:

“Inspirational, thought-provoking: those are two words I would use to describe the talk that Anthony McGowan gave to us year 7 pupils at St John’s School, Marlborough.

Anthony McGowan is an English author who writes books for all ages, and who all year 7 pupils got to meet on an online video call just before half term. In the call, we got to listen to excerpts of a few of his books, learn what it is like to be an author, and have some of our questions answered.

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and especially one of his books ‘Henry Tumour’- a book about a boy with a tumour that speaks to him (a sad story, but insightful). Not only was Anthony incredibly funny, he was also good at explaining why certain parts had been written.

From the talk that that was given by Anthony McGowan, I have learnt that writing takes a long time so don’t expect things to be perfect first time – be resilient and carry on!

I think it is important for secondary school pupils to have talks like these because it motivates us to read more and maybe even write stories ourselves!”  

Marlborough LitFest has always been about encouraging reading and writing for everyone in Marlborough and beyond, whether or not they are regular festival goers. This year, nearly 700 Year 5 and Year 6 primary school children took part  in LitFest’s free schools talks with children’s authors, Tom Palmer and Natasha Farrant in Marlborough Town Hall and Bouverie Hall, Pewsey.

The aim of the festival’s schools outreach programme is to encourage a love of books and reading in children.

There were nearly 600 entries from local primary schools for this year’s children’s competition which involved creating a mini-book. Six children each won £25 book tokens to spend in the White Horse Bookshop, kindly donated by local Marlborough opticians, Haine and Smith.