Writers & Readers Schools Day

Writers & Readers Schools Day brings leading authors, illustrators, comics creators and Wellington students together across six inspiring sessions and two workshops. Create your own itinerary from the programme below. 

This day is aimed at getting young people excited about literature, literacy and creativity while giving them powerful writing tools for a brighter future. 

Students can also get interactive on our post-it note wall and meet the editors of Toitoi: A Journal for Young Writers and Artists.  

Each session is 45 minutes long and is followed by a 15-minute book signing.

Download Writers & Readers Schools Day Teacher Resource Kit

Download your Writers & Readers Schools Day printable programme

WRITERS & READERS SCHOOLS SESSIONS

Choose one event from each session time.

10-10.45am

COMICS AND JOURNALISM with Sarah Glidden (Auditorium)

Sarah Glidden is a US journalist who tells important stories in comics, such as her books How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less and Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.

ASHES TO ASHES with Mandy Hager (Renouf Foyer)

Award-winning New Zealand writer Mandy Hager will talk about the inspiration behind her 2013 futuristic political thriller, The Nature of Ash, and how she created its 2018 sequel, Ash Arising.

11–11.45am

WORD SPIES AND A BLUE CAT with Ursula Dubosarsky (Auditorium)

Ursula Dubosarsky has won nine Australian literary prizes and written more than 40 books for children, including three works of non-fiction about language, grammar and etymology. Her latest novel is The Blue Cat.

MANSFIELD AND ME with Sarah Laing (Renouf Foyer)

Sarah Laing is a comics creator, illustrator, graphic designer, editor and writer. Part memoir, part biography, part fantasy, her Mansfield and Me examines how our lives connect to those of our personal heroes.

12–1pm Lunch

1–1.45pm

A GIRL DETECTIVE AND A FLYING PIG with RA Spratt (Auditorium)

RA Spratt might be a terrible speller but she is a terrific writer of successful TV scripts and books, including her Nanny Piggins series, about the much-loved anarchic caregiver pig, and her Friday Barnes series, about an intrepid girl detective.

WORD HUNTING with Nick Earls (Renouf Foyer)

Nick Earls writes fiction for adults and children, including the wildly successful Word Hunters trilogy, which weaves a dramatic chase for young readers back through human history and the origin of words. His books have been adapted for stage and screen.

WRITERS & READERS SCHOOLS WORKSHOPS

Students can also attend one of our two half-day masterclass workshops: 

9.30–11am: Learn about comedy writing with RA Spratt 

12.30–2pm: Create your own comic with Sarah Laing

Curriculum Links: English, Visual Art