Macleans College students gain inspiration at the Auckland Writers Festival
Posted on September 07, 2022
Year 11 English students and members of the Writers’ Club jumped at the opportunity to spend a day at the Auckland Writers’ Festival.
For the Year 11 English students, the day began with British writer and physicist Femi Fadugba, who discussed ‘The Upper World’ - his young adult debut novel that incorporates sci-fi archetypes, quantum physics and London life.
Anne Kayes led the second session, where she discussed her historical fiction piece ‘In Our Own Backyard’, a novel concerning the issue of apartheid within the 1981 Springbok tour. An interactive discussion followed with poet Anna Jackson, paediatrician Dr Renee Liang and playwright Victor Rodger. A homage to performance poetry, each writer vocalised sonnets, free verse and dialogue poetry respectively to obtain the highest praise towards their favoured style.
Members of the Macleans College Writers’ Club were in literary heaven while immersed in the ideas and inspiration of some of New Zealand’s finest authors.
Award-winning authors from the short story master, Owen Marshall, to slam poetry champion, Mohamed Hassan, generously shared their wisdom and insights about life, writing and having a voice. Students were introduced to topics as diverse as racism, future worlds and identity politics.
In a series of workshops and plenary discussions, Writers’ Club members were encouraged to deliberately put time aside to put pen to paper/fingers to keyboard and just write – whether for personal self-expression or to tell the world a story.
To end the day both the Year 11 English students and Writers’ Club members listened to rising poet, journalist and podcaster Mohammed Hassan deliver his moving memoir ‘I am dangerous’; a spoken word regarding the ignorance of racial profiling that society embeds onto Muslim identities.
The Macleans College students came away with advice and inspiration to see the texts that they study in a completely new way, and to be confident in writing for themselves.
