Featured post

PAM ROYDS 1924 - 2016

Pam Royds on Grasmere , 1971 with Sally Christie, children’s author and daughter of Philippa Pearce. I was just twenty two when I fir...

About Me

My photo
United Kingdom
My blog is about writing and illustrating children's books which I have been doing since 1974. www.gillianmcclure.com has all my books. I also have another blog: www.paulcoltman.blogspot.com where I publish my father's poems.

Sunday, 28 February 2010

CHILDREN'S BOOKS & THE WOMEN'S INSTITUTE


I gave a hands-on, illustrated talk to the Burwell WI this week about writing picture book texts and illustrating.
    Writers and illustrators shouldn't dismiss the WI when planning their calendar of engagements. The audience in Burwell spanned a range of ages - mothers and grandmothers. They were informed, interested and asked many questions. As well as receiving a fee, I was able to sell a lot of my books; the WI taking a small commission - 10% - for their funds.
   Afterwards, two of the audience, a teacher and a school librarian, approached me about possible visits to their respective Primary Schools. The school librarian told me she was on the panel of the Kate Greenaway Award this year.


I've worked with older people on other occasions, during community residencies and found these events rewarding. On one, the inmates of a residential home were given sketch books and encouraged to write and draw in them. Several said they couldn't begin to write but I found they were natural story tellers when asked about their WW2 childhoods. Their vivid tales and anecdotes were recorded and later shared with some year 2 pupils.

All this makes me recall I'm a granny too - an overseas granny who only sees her grandchildren twice a year; missing, in between, all the little milestones of their development - first laugh, first mouthful of solid food, first steps, first sentence.
However, I'm compensating for this absence by creating new picture book stories with them very much in mind. Maybe if I were with them all the time I wouldn't feel the need to do this or I'd find there wasn't the time.

3 comments:

  1. Lovely post! It's funny, both my mother and my grandmother are/were natural storytellers but always insisted they'd never be able to write a story! I hope your grandchildren (really?!) enjoy your stories and treasure them for years to come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. love this post! i've only recently discovered that my grandmother was an accomplished cartoonist and i wish i'd had more time to get to know her ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sure both of you get your talent from your grandmothers!

    ReplyDelete