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Speed date an author courts taranaki

Taranaki is in for a treat, with Speed Date an Author heading to Hawera, featuring Alison Wong, David Hill, Janet Hunt, Duncan Sarkies and Briar Grace-Smith, as well as another guest writer. Topics haven't been confirmed yet, but the target age group this time is keen writers aged 14-17 years.

If you are a Taranaki High School, and whether or not you are a member of the Book Council, please email Sarah on education@bookcouncil.org.nz to recieve further information as it comes to hand.

Speed Date an Author information

Ever wondered what your kids could write with a bit of advice from New Zealand’s top writers?

The Book Council invites your school to host a Speed Date an Author day. Six brilliant writers will talk to five groups of up to 10 students for 20 minutes each about a key aspect of writing, with a little help at the end from a top editor on how to edit their own work. Each student will then go back to home and school and, over the next weeks, write a 500-word story based on what they learned from these writers about how to generate ideas, character, plot, scene and other elements of a story.

We ran this event in Wellington in September with Tessa Duder, Gavin Bishop, Melinda Szymanik, Maria Gill, Mandy Hager and Ruth Paul leading these “speed dating” workshops. Read about the success of this day on the Dominion Post website here. This is an unmissable experience for your promising writers. Each student also has the opportunity to enter their finished story into a competition, with prizes including book tokens, and books by the writers involved, as well as publication on the Book Council website.

There will be a cost per student for the event, and this will depend on the context of the event. The maximum number of students which can be involved is 50, with an age range depending on the topics covered. We wish to target promising writers with this morning workshop, which includes a half-hour break midway through.

We look forward to running this type of event again all around New Zealand - especially in association with Literary Festivals. If you are running a literary festival next year, please get in touch with Sarah Forster and we can talk about ways we could modify the format to fit your needs. Details are outlined below.

For further information, please contact Sarah Forster, E: education@bookcouncil.org.nz.
Ph: (04) 499 1569.