Very Able Writers!

by Mark Robson
November 10, 2011

I’ve just got back from my first two ‘Able Writers’ days. This is a scheme run by Authors Abroad, who arrange to gather together groups of the very best young writers from several schools into a host school and give them a whole day of workshops with a professional writer. It was an eye-opener, I can tell you!

Day one was in St Peter’s RC School in Leatherhead, where I had the pleasure of working with 28 bright young writers. Wow, could those youngsters write! They were amazing! And day two at The Duke of Kent School was equally as humbling. There is no doubt that some of the children I worked with had the potential to be professional writers in the future. For the really exceptional ones there, they weren’t far from producing work so polished that I would not be surprised if it gained the interest of an agent or two now… and the writers were only 10 and 11 years old!

As I’m normally drafted in to work with reluctant writers, I can’t begin to explain what a pleasure it was to work with such enthusiastic and gifted young writers. I’m very much hoping that I will be asked to do many more of these days in the future. It was great fun.