Poor Maddie ...

Everyone knows about the AYW mascot - Maddie - the little golden bear who proudly sports her AYW tee-shirt with extreme pride.  Maddie loves her exciting lifestyle where she is constantly staying in different homes where all her adventures are recorded in her diary.

But oh dear me!  I think she partied a little too hard last time because when she came back to me, one ear was hanging off and stuffing was coming out of her chest!!!  When I asked her what she'd been up to, she just smiled at me very cheekily!

The good news is that she is now all mended and better and her tee-shirt is nice and clean so she will be back with the Young Writers on Saturday.  But please can whoever takes her home take extra special care of her?

I don't want to have to take her back to the Teddy Hospital again ...

On a different note - massive thanks to everyone who turned up at the last session where we worked in pairs to write poems.  And a special thank you to those who turned up at the Workshop at Croydon Central library on Monday.  It was brilliant to see people from so many different places - Croydon Literacy, Children Who Shine and  AYW to help us with the creation of The Magical Quest - a wonderful story about twins who go on a quest to find The Lost Book Of All Languages.  Everyone worked really hard with their ideas and we are hoping that copies of the finished story will be available to everyone who took part very soon.  Thank you all again - especially to Jenny who instigated the event.  We had a brilliant time!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at this Saturday's session - and don't forget we have the Picnic in the Park the following Saturday (2nd July).  And please - if you have not yet returned your Author Profiles and Consent forms, they really do need to brought back ASAP if you want your work to appear in Word Magic 2 later this year.

And finally thank you to everyone who has recently bought copies of My Writer - if you know anyone else who would like a copy, let me know.

See you Saturday and Good Writing!!!

Back From Bonny Scotland ...

Just got back from a smashing week in Oban in Scotland.  Had plenty of time to relax and plan ahead and look at everything going on.  Decided it would be great to go back to poetry for this week's session (11th June) - maybe being in the homeland of Robert Burns had something to do with it!

I have lots of preparation to do in the coming weeks - one thing I will be doing is the workshop with Croydon Literacy on Monday 20th June, 5pm - 6.30 pm.  I will be handing out invitations to this event this Saturday and everyone is welcome.  It'll be structured quite differently from a Young Writer session and is guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing - so why not come along and join us on The Magical Quest on 20th June?  

On 18th June, I will be running a stall in Croydon as part of Croydon Heritage Festival.  I'll be selling copies of my books but mainly I will be advertising Addsicombe Young Writers so if you are around Croydon that day, why not come along and say hello?

On 25th June, I have got a stall at the Woodside Primary School summer fayre from 12 - 4 where I will be selling copies of  My Writer and I have also been asked to consider doing a Creative Writing workshop from adults at Ashburton Library so if this is something you would be interested in, let me know and I will keep you updated.

I am still waiting on a few consent and author profile forms from everyone who wants to be included in Word Magic 2 and I will follow up on this on Saturday so if you haven't handed yours in yet please do so ASAP - I cannot stress how important this is!

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday. Good Writing everyone!