Our Year 8 students at the Boys’ School were pleased to welcome author, Rachael Craw this morning, as part of the Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust Story Tour. This annual event sees 24 leading authors and illustrators touring schools around the country.

The boys are currently writing their own short stories and picture books for the Junior boys, as part of their revision of narrative writing and consolidation of other writing features they’ve learned, so this was perfect timing!

A self-confessed ‘book nerd,’ Racheal’s debut teen novel, ‘Spark’ was the beginning a Young Adult sci-fi/crossover trilogy that was released in 2014 and went on to win multiple awards. She told the boys ‘it’s one thing to have an idea for a story, but quite another to actually write it!’ But write it she did, and Spark was followed by ‘Stray’ and ‘Shield’ to complete the trilogy. Her most recent book, ‘The Rift’ is now on book shelves.

She explained that her chosen genre was ‘speculative fiction’ - story ideas that are grounded in the real world but with ‘what if’ speculative elements to add frisson to her story telling. She set out to create a strong ‘kick-ass’ female protagonist - and from there the storyline developed.

She said she had always loved the form and texture of words but it took a while to realise she had a burning desire to get a story down, but it was a journey of perseverance as she honed her craft, and sought mentoring, an agent and finally a publisher.

The boys were encouraged to love the words they use and read widely for reading matters. We now look forward to reading the boys’ stories!

Our sincere thanks to Rachael and Storylines for making this valuable learning opportunity available to out students.

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