Sydney Writers Festival

On 24 May, Years 3 and 4 were fortunate enough to attend the Sydney Writers Festival at Sydney Town Hall and engage in four insightful and engaging sessions with renowned writers. Each author brought a unique set of knowledge to inspire our children to write imaginatively and use everyday experiences to shape their own novel in the future. 

Cristy Burne kickstarted our incredible day with some explosive storytelling, engaging students in different science experiments. Cristy inspired students to view writing as an experiment. She reminded aspiring writers that the big exciting explosions cannot come before the basis has been built correctly. 

I liked how she used science experiments to make us laugh like throwing marshmallows into the crowd.

Christopher, Year 3

Maryam Master was renowned for her work transforming well-known books into plays and musicals all around Australia. Maryam also told her own personal story of fleeing Iran as a child and how this heavily influenced her writing. While reading an expert of her novel she encouraged children to take their own personal stories as inspiration for their writing. 

The Wylah Series was a fan favourite of many students. 

Very clever authors Jordan Gould and Richard Pritchard took our students through the creation of the Wylah series. Students were very excited to help design a megafauna creature that will become a part of Wylah’s world. Students were engaged in choosing the personality traits, physical features and name while watching the author bring the character to life digitally on the screen. 

I liked hearing how writers came up with their ideas.

Elijah, Year 3

I liked being able to create our own character and watching it come to life.

Celine, Year 4

Soaring into a world of heroes and unicorns, students were taken into the supernatural world for the final session with author A.F Steadman. In her first book, Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, students explored and created a new unicorn that can be used in her subsequent novels in the series. 

It was interesting to hear about new books.

James, Year 3

Overall a great day for all students!

Joanne Giannini
Head of Primary P-4