Melbourne Writer’s Festival Schools Program

On Thursday the 8th of May, we went to the Melbourne Writers Festival, Schools program. This was an opportunity to meet some prominent Australian authors, who shared their passion, ideas and backgrounds to reading and writing. Some of the authors seen at the event were young adult (YA) author Robyn Dennison, poet Solli Raphael, author Gary Lonesborough and the #1 New York Times Bestselling author Neal Shusterman who had come as a guest from the USA. This was a very unique chance to hear from these authors and their careers of writing. Especially after studying some of their works in English class, like SolliRaphael's slam poetry. 

In a group of 15 students, we took a train from Patterson to Melbourne Central Station, to get to the State Library where it was held. The authors were interviewed by a hostess, and after we got a chance to ask the authors questions about their books, challenges and passion for reading. There were two sessions, one before lunch, where we got to meet the authors Gary Lonesborough and Solli Raphael. And one after lunch, where we got to meet Robyn Dennison and Neal Shusterman. As a group we went to the food court close by, where we were allowedto buy any lunch we wanted in the 40-minute gap between sessions. The authors signed books that were on sale at the venue and then we all took the train home.

This was an interesting experience and was fun to attend. Both getting to meet the authors and hear about their personal stories as well as the ones they have written. 

Lily 9L