News

Award-winning author visits LWC

Jenni Riddalls | 10 October 2023

Best-selling author, Patrice Lawrence, visited LWC this week to talk to our 3rd Form about her numerous books for children and young adults.

Patrice’s debut YA novel, Orangeboy, won the Bookseller YA Prize and the Waterstones Prize for Older Children’s Fiction and was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award. Her subsequent novels have been much acclaimed and on many prize lists including; the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize, YA Book Prize, Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing 2023 (the Carnegie is the children’s/YA equivalent of the Booker prize) and in 2021 Patrice received an MBE for services to literature.

Patrice enthused and inspired our 3rd Form with a lively presentation about her journey as a writer. At lunch, there was more book joy when local independent book sellers, One Tree Books, joined us with a fantastic selection of books for sale.

In the afternoon, a select group of students were lucky enough to have a small creative writing workshop with Patrice, which focused on character creation. The students came up with some imaginative and diverse characters – from a queen witch to a body-building baked bean!

Patrice was kind, approachable and passionate about writing, reading and the importance of diversity in books. Having read four of her wonderful books, it was great to hear how she writes and why. She mentioned that she is always asking ‘what if’– it was a great reminder of the power of curiosity and an open mind, things we value highly at LWC. What a brilliant role model for our students to hear from.

  Jenni Riddalls, School Library Assistant