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A group of Year 8 students had the opportunity to be part of a creative writing workshop with children’s author, Kyle Mewburn this week. This opportunity is a collaboration between the College’s Enhanced Learning Department and the Middle School.
Kyle has published over 50 books, and is most known for his Dinosaur Rescue series and his award winning books, ‘Old Huhu’ and ‘Kiss Kiss, Yuck Yuck’.
Kyle won the Joy Cowley Award in 2005 for the development of a picture book text. He has also won both the Picture Book Category and the Children's Choice Award at the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Kyle was an engaging and hilarious presenter and the students were immediately captivated by him. He spoke about his journey to becoming a writer, his writing process, and the elements of the printing process, such as the Dinosaur Rescue series must be 96 pages long so it fits the printing template. He explained that he is ‘all about the words and will often change the character to fit the metaphor.’
The award winning author shared many writing techniques and students were given creative writing scenarios to practise their craft. This was in the form of a story starter where Kyle gave each student a character, a genre and the challenge to be written in either the first or third person. Students were encouraged to develop their own writing voices and were brimming with ideas and inspiration when they returned to class.
Student, Sam Watson commented that he found Kyle very inspirational and that he was quirky and humorous. ‘I took a lot away from the day especially on character development,’ he said. ‘This workshop was really handy as we start writing narratives this week in class.’
Likewise, student Isobel Merrie described Kyle’s personality as quirky, explaining that he writes his stories backwards. ‘But thinking about it, that method actually really works,’ she said. ‘I loved how he had a dream and after seven years of no work he made it, and I admire his perseverance.’
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