Word Christchurch student event

On Thursday I had the privilege to be able to attend a Word Christchurch high school students event at the University of Canterbury. Me and a group of 14 other students went and listen to 2 authors and 2 poets talk about what inspires them to write.

1st Session

The 1st session was spent listening to Laurie Winkless who is a certified physicist turned science writer. She started out interviewing other scientists and writing for magazines such as Forbes, BA Business Life, Wired, and The Londonist just to name a few. She was then approached by Bloomsbury publishers and asked if she could write a book about science. Her debut book is Science in the City and it looks into the unknown world of science in the UK. Her 2nd book, Sticky, is due to be released somewhere around 2020. Sticky focuses on what keeps cars on
roads, trains on tracks, and also looks into the longtime debate about why curling stones move on ice like they do.

Interval aka we went to the university library cause we nerds

We then had a break which we spent looking around the University library. The library is 11 floors high and each floor is categorized, for example the 10th floor is mostly history and classics and the 4th floor is pretty much all languages. My

friend Chloe ended up getting so excited the the librarian had to tell her to be quiet. They also had a display about Japanese photographs, because photographs were black and white the Japanese would hand paint the colors. I have to say that exploring the library was one of my favorite parts of this trip. We also found a statue that was scarily realistic. 

2nd Session

After our excursion to the library we made our way to the 2nd session which consisted of 1 author and 2 poets reading from their books. The first speaker was a poet named Holly McNish. The 1st 2 poems were from her book Nobody told me. This book of poems tells the tales of her first couple of years with her newly born daughter, one about her seeing her body in a mirror, and 1 about the color of her daughters skin while they were in Sydney, Australia (her daughter is mixed race so she got dark brown skin, just to add context). She also read a poem about how much she loved her shoulders and about all the dumb stuff she did when she was a teen. The 2nd Speaker was Juno Dawson who read the first 2 chapters of her new book Clean. Clean tells the story of teenager Lexi, a heroin addict, and her experience in rehab. Juno Dawson also had the privilege of being able to write one of the first Doctor Who books for the 13th Doctor, the first female Doctor who will be played by Jodie Whittaker. She decided to read the first chapter of the book which excited me greatly because I thoroughly enjoy Doctor Who. The 3rd and final speaker was Omar Musa. Omar is a author, poet, and rapper from NSW, Australia. The first poem he read was actually a rap about curry noddle soup and how it should become the national food of Australia. He then read a poem about the story who was a victim who became a kidnapped slave forced to work for a fisherman in Thailand (this is a real story by the way). Lastly he read a short poem about depression which wrapped up the event. 

Holly McNish (left), Juno Dawson (centre), Omar Musa (right)

Thoughts on the event

I wouldn't say I enjoyed it but I wouldn't say it was unenjoyable either. I felt this way most likely because I thought it would be more about giving young writers advice on how to improve writing, world building, character development. This event was more about inspiring young writers. It kinda worked cause I got to go to the library which inspired me. Word Christchurch is also happening on this Saturday (1st of September) and the speakers at this event will be there among others. 

Enjoy this photo of my decapitated body on the ground.