Author Visit – Helen Moss

On Tuesday 5^th March our ‘Author in Residence’ Helen Moss visited the Secondary phase to help celebrate World Book Day and promote a love of reading. In the morning she spoke to the whole of Year 7 in the hall about children’s books, past and present, and about our favourite book characters and stories.  She then carried out a creative poetry-writing workshop on the theme of ‘place’, with selected pupils from years 7 and a travel writing workshop with students in Year 8.

“I enjoyed the workshop because Helen was able to explain what we had to do well. I liked it when she read a part of her book to us as it gave us an example of what we were meant to aim for. She showed us different ways of doing travel writing and the sorts of crazy things people do when writing a travel book.”  Sarah Fife 8B

“I really enjoyed the travel writing workshop. We had to create a chase scene, whilst describing the surroundings – this was my favourite part. Helen read us a short section of one of her books and also told us about her childhood in Saudi Arabia. I really enjoyed meeting her and found her very encouraging.” Zena Yaxley 8B

“ I enjoyed the poetry workshop with Helen Moss because it gave me the chance to what I like doing, with a friendly atmosphere. Everyone was sharing ideas and it was good to hear all of the poems, even the sad ones! Personally I felt like I could have done it all day and would do it again in a minute, but all good things must come to an end!” Max Bradbury 7K

“ The workshop was based on poetry but we also looked at song lyrics as inspiration which was fun. We wrote our own poems about home or a place we liked to be. I got lots of inspirational tips and hints for writing empathy poems and overall it was a fantastic workshop.”  Skye Frier-West 7K

We were very fortunate to have author Helen Moss visit both phases of our school last week to help us celebrate World Book Day. Dressed as ‘Irene Loveday’ a character from her Adventure Island series, she spoke to the whole of Primary phase during assembly, where students were able to share their favourite book characters and show off their wonderful costumes.

Helen then read a book called ‘Little Red and the Hungry Lion’ to Red Robins class. The reception pupils listened brilliantly to the story, which was an adaptation of the classic tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. They asked some great questions and really enjoyed talking to Helen about the differences between the two tales.

After break Helen carried out a ‘Dangerous Writing’ workshop with Year 6 students where she shared some useful tips for writing suspense scenes. She explained how to set the scene, zoom in on details and how to come up with a ‘yikes’ moment.

 “I think Helen Moss has helped us a lot with suspense writing. I also think that she has inspired a lot people to get involved with books.” Millie, Kingfishers

“Working with Helen Moss on our Year 6 suspense work was very good and she showed us lots of good ways to think of ideas.” Hannah, Kingfishers

“We had Helen Moss visit us on World Book Day and we did a writing workshop with her. The best word to describe her is ‘amazing’. I have read all her books and the writing makes me feel that I’m in the story. We would like to have her in again. Thank you.” Kelly, Kingfishers

In the afternoon, Helen met with our team of student editors in the secondary phase who are working on a creative writing anthology that we are producing with her. It was brilliant to receive some expert advice from a well-known published author on how to go about producing the collection of stories.

“We were really lucky to have our ‘Author in Residence’ the fantastic Helen Moss pay us a visit. Myself and the other editors met with her to discuss the anthology and how best to produce and publicise it. Helen loved all the stories and illustrations. We looked at the design of the book and how best to order the stories. We picked a title although this must remain a secret, I’m afraid!

 Meeting with Helen was invaluable experience as she gave us great tips on how to make the most out of your brilliant stories. It’s a real honour to be part of the editing team. Sitting there with the anthology in front of me was very exciting. It is really beginning to look like a very professional volume. We hope to launch the anthology in the summer term with Helen. A big thank you to Helen for coming in and giving us some fantastic ideas. Finally, thank you to everyone who has contributed stories and worked so hard over the past few months on the collection. We look forward to showing you the finished work!” Amelia 9B

Finally, at the end of the day Helen give a talk to the whole of Year 7, where she spoke about the inspiration behind her books and how she goes about researching them. There was an amusing reading from her short story ‘The Mystery of the Pineapple Plot’, when some of our students were given the opportunity to try on a Georgian wig and act out some of the main characters.

“Helen’s visit was very inspirational for young writers. She showed that writing a book is good for your creativity, imagination and prospective of the world around us, without limits. She explained how having unique characters in your story can make it more interesting and fun to read. This is because they paint a very detailed picture in your mind and help to give your story a purpose. She told us how being an author can be exciting at times because you can visit the places you are writing about to boost your story. For example; by learning about the food the country eats and what the people are like. We learnt that having a mystery in a story can make it more addictive and gives the reader a chance to be in the character’s shoes. Overall Helen demonstrated that writing can be really enjoyable if you are not afraid of letting your imagination run.” Jessica and Elana-Rose 7C

On the 1^st December, Helen Moss will be visiting the secondary phase to carry out some workshops for students in Year 7, 8 & 9. When Helen visited the Primary phase back in October we interviewed her about her work and this is what we found out:

• Helen said that she first started writing books 8 years ago in 2008, when she was 44 years old.
• Her favourite book that she has written herself is Dragon Path, because she enjoyed researching the mystery of the Chinese emperors.
• Her favourite book genre, other than mystery, is block buster and Victorian novels.
• The book that has taken her the longest to write is Dino Discovery, because it was too complex and she had to restart it. It was one of her first books that she started to write and she has only recently finished it.
• When she is writing she likes to keep her office door open and she finds she often loses track of time.
• Her favourite book character from her books is Jack from the Adventure Island series because he is humorous.
• The hardest book for her to get published was the one she is currently writing, The Sea Cucumbers Revenge.

For more information about Helen and her books visit her website www.helenmoss.org.uk

On Thursday the 17^th of November, an author called Alexander Gordon Smith who wrote such books as ‘Escape From Furnace’ visited the school. During first period, he did a large assembly telling us hilarious stories, such as when his brother who is eleven locked him in a dungeon cell. My personal favourite is the story about when he used a shotgun to do some research for his book. He didn’t want to shoot anything living, so he shot a cowpat. Now if you don’t know what happens when you shoot a cowpat… well… the cowpat erupts. Now I’m not going to delve into too much detail, but let’s just say that after a while, someone in the story got covered in cowpat! He also told us about the fact that you don’t have to worry about being a terrible writer, everyone can write – just have a go.

During second and third period he did a workshop with a selected few (me being one of them) and got us to invent a character for a book. He asked us questions such as ‘what’s your characters favourite possession?’ and ‘how old are they?’ Afterwards he asked us to make the first paragraph (or first chapter in my case) of a book, but it had to have our character in it. Some people (if not all) were deadly serious and made crazy story plots such as ‘on a roller coaster two peoples heads collide and they turn into zombies’ and ‘china dolls take over the world’. Did I mention Alexander Gordon Smith was a horror writer?

We had a great time and were given a lot ideas on how to go about creating a great horror plot. Jordan, Year 8

Author Alexander Gordon Smith visited our school last Thursday and he told us about his job of writing books. He told us that he likes to get inside his character’s head and see what they see, to help him write. Some of his examples were crazier than others. For example, in one of his experiments, Gordon (as he liked to be called) and his little brother decided to make some rocket shoes. They had a friend who liked to shoot and they borrowed some of his gun powder for the shoes and they tested it on an action man. They were so glad that they didn’t experiment on each other, because when they got it back, they found it had lost his feet!
Later on in the day he carried out a workshop. It was about creative writing and we had to create a character. We had to think of their age, their favourite food and drink, where they lived, where they would want to die, what their parents are like, what they do secretly (like picking their nose!), the best and worst thing in their life, what their dream job would be, their most prized possessions and more.

We then had to write the first paragraph of the story we were thinking ideas up for and then we read them out. Most of our ideas were really good. Gordon then told us to ask the question ‘What if…?’, meaning that we had to think of something really crazy that could happen under different circumstances, or think, if I had carried on, what would have happened? Damien, Year 8

Alexander Gordon Smith was really funny and I really enjoyed creating a character using his helpful tips.  If I was to be an author, I would write horror stories following in the footsteps of Gordon. He was very down to earth. Ben, Year 8

The author visit was really good because I got to see a writer of really good spooky stories. Also just to add to the excitement, I got to take part in his workshop and learned how to write a proper story. We asked him questions about his job and how good it is to be an author. The rest of my group wrote stories as well and we all really enjoyed it. Max, Year 8

On Friday the 14^th, Damien and myself went to the Primary phase to help with a visit from our ‘Author in Residence’ Helen Moss. Helen is writer of the Adventure Island and Secret of the Tombs series, as well as other books.

The first the class we went to was White Doves, where the pupils told Helen about their favourite books such as The Gruffalo. Helen spoke to them about her mystery adventure books and their characters Emily, Scott, Jack and Drift the dog. Emily is the main mystery solver in the books. Afterwards they looked inside ‘Emily’s Investigation Kit’, which contained items that a 12 year old could use that would help in an investigation. Pupils took in turn to pick an item and try and guess how it could be used to solve a mystery. For example, Troy picked a notebook and thought it could be used to take notes. Then Phoenix selected plasticine which the class said was to make casts of peoples shoes. Zachery selected a wig and the student of the day got to wear it as a disguise.

Next it was the turn of Tawny Owls who also had the chance to explore Emily’s investigation Kit. Louisa picked out some shampoo. One or two thought it could be used to stop a villain by pouring it on their head so that it made them itch and so slow them down, but it was also thought that it could also be used to make them slip!

After break, Oystercatchers had a workshop with Helen based on her story “The Mystery of the Drowning Man’. First of all we discussed the ingredients of a good Mystery story e.g. danger, surprise, problems, gadgets, clues and most important observation & deduction. Then Helen read to us from her book. We played a game in teams where we had to use observation and deduction to identify an unconscious person from 13 unlucky people that had gone missing, by asking questions to which Helen could only give a yes or no answer.

The final workshop of the day was with Golden Eagles. They all had to pretend to be evil when thinking of story! They looked at the structures of stories and had to think of a character, setting, objective and problem which they wrote on a piece of paper and put into a salad mixer which mixed them altogether. They then made two stories by picking one of each of the components. The one which I preferred goes: “There was once a man called Jeffery who lived in Princess World and wanted to do magic, but he got trapped in a cave with a massive animated hamburger!

I really enjoyed meeting the author Helen Moss and working with lots of pupils from the Primary phase.