On Tuesday the 12th of August, acclaimed Australian author, Morris Gleitzman, visited Viewbank College and presented to a group of chosen students from year 7 to year 10 throughout the second period.
Morris Gleitzman is most famously known for acclaimed books such as the Once series and Boy Overboard. Through his discussion, Morris touched on many different topics, relating to his books and himself as an author, such as discussing the importance of an opening sentence, the process of creating and finding a character from with-in himself, and the research that is needed when writing a story based off real life events, while Viewbank students listened to him intently. He also answered multiple questions asked to him by students in great detail and signed students copies of his books they had brought.
His words about what his books mean to him and many others was truly inspirational and inspired many of the students, me included, to further enhance their story writing ability and pursue a career in writing.
Jack P10I
Morris Gleitzman started the talk by sharing some problems he met in the process of writing a new book. His ways of connecting his own problems to many diverse, relevant topics highlight his story teller's mind. Throughout the talk, he walked us through a range of factors of story writing, going along with his own interpretation of those factors.
My personal favourite part of the talk is when he talked about the first sentence of his books. According to him, the first sentence is always something that hold him back from starting a book and I can really relate to that feeling of him. At the end, he gave us chances to ask questions and that helped me to answer some of my used-to-be-unsolvable questions, as well as encouraged me to continue to build on my writing story skills.
Helen Le 8L
On Tuesday the accelerated classes all were given the incredible opportunity to meet Morris Gleitzman, the well renowned author of over forty books. We were all so immensely excited to meet and learn from him. He was an entertaining and engaging person with lots of intriguing stories to tell, during his time speaking with us he told us about his time as an author, why and how he became an author, and his experiences with other authors.
He also gave us amazing tips about writing and also told us particularly about the struggles he has starting a story and how he gets past that. The experience of meeting Morris Gleizman was both captivating and fascinating. It is an experience that I think that everyone who received the chance to have, will definitely keep with them forever.
We all learnt extremely valuable lessons which will be a great help to us as we progress to the upper years of high school, and especially if any of us go on to become authors one day. Thank you Morris Gleizman for providing us with the wonderful chance to meet you!
Viewbank College
