First Story Festival

First Story held their annual Festival today: around 700 kids from all over the country turned up in Oxford to spend the day talking to writers and writing. Their enthusiasm was infectious. At the end a handful of them, beautifully orchestrated by poet Kate Fox, stood up before the crowd and read from the work they’d done during the day: the talent was prodigious. They were warmly supported by amongst others, the Childrens’ Laureate Malorie Blackman, Deborah Moggach, Oxford City poet Kate Clanchy, Mark Haddon, Stephen May and Salena Godden to name but some of the wonderful writers who join in to help First Story.

One of their alumni, award-winning poet Azfa Awad, wrote this for Give a Book:
“I really enjoyed the ‘Staying Alive Trilogy’ and was inspired by many of the poems. The fact that someone was generous enough to donate the anthologies is incredible and the fun and inspiration we had from the anthology was priceless.”
So now please go back to Give a Book to help us keep this going.