17 March 2022
Ms Amanda Owens, Librarian
Year 9 students were very fortunate to hear from author of young adult fiction M A Bennett about the inspiration behind her extremely popular books when she visited Woldingham on Thursday 17 March.
Marina talked about how an early love of reading led to her writing career, eloquently describing how she sees a book’s front cover as “a door into another world”. Focusing on her novel The Island and her S.T.A.G.S. series, Marina explained how living with her grandmother, who was housekeeper at a stately home in North Yorkshire, and witnessing house party weekends, influenced her writing, which is predominantly about hierarchy in schools and society in general.
A film production of S.T.A.G.S. is currently at the casting stage, so we are all very interested to see how, in time, this excellent book translates to the screen. There were several student offers of acting as an ‘extra’ on hearing this!
I was very pleased that students from Oasis Academy in Old Coulsdon were able to join us for one of the sessions. Everyone made the most of the opportunity to ask Marina questions and buy signed copies of her books afterwards.