Storylines Festival Story Tour 2014 Reflection

The storylines tour has come and gone once again, last week both Extension groups went to the Storylines Festival Story Tour for 2014. Four authors presented, Juliette MacIver, Jill MacGregor, Catherine Mayo and Paula Green. Out of them, I enjoyed Juliette and Catherine the best. Juliette writes children’s picture books while Catherine is into ancient Greece. The different styles of writing were very interesting to listen to, though that talked differently and about different things, their stories were very cool.

I didn’t know but Juliette wrote the three Marmaduke Duck books and a lot of picture books that I knew of, it was good to hear the actual author talk about all those books. When she first came onto the stage, she was wearing a headband with a toucan on it, then she showed us her book Toucan Can. After talking about Toucan Can, we knew that she LOVED to rhyme. To finish off, she read us one of her books, Queen Alices Palaces.

Catherine Mayo told us about her trip to a cave in Greece that she went to to find inspiration for her books, Murder at Mykenai and The Bow which is the sequel to her first novel. She brought with her some pictures of her in the cave and a sword that she had bought from a man who made a replica of a famous dagger from ancient Greece.

If I were to present at the festival when I am older, I think that I would talk about when I was at school and where I got my inspiration from to write. If I did write a book, I would bring that too. I probably wouldn’t bring any props because I like writing about real events more that narratives, but I would bring pictures.

If I would ask any questions to Catherine or Juliette or the other authors, I would say, “Why do you write?” because everyone says where they get their ideas from and who inspires them but I was wondering, why, why do they want to. I enjoyed the Festival and I would like to go again next year to find out more about New Zealand authors. Thanks Catherine, Juliette, Jill and Paula for talking to us, I learnt lots about the different styles of writing.