An Inspiring Conversation: Years 7 and 8 meet Michael Morpurgo
On Tuesday 2nd June, a large number of our Year 7 and 8 students were lucky enough to attend a live online talk with acclaimed children’s writer Michael Morpurgo as part of the York Festival of Ideas, alongside students from other schools across the country. Michael was also joined by Katie Razzall, BBC News Culture and Media Editor.
Michael spoke about his new book ‘Cobweb’ and his life as a writer with some opportunity for Q&A at the end.
A student in Ms Bennett’s class was lucky enough to have her question answered by him:
Question asked by St. John’s student: “If you weren’t an author, what job would you do?”
Michael’s response: “My ambition when I was younger was to play rugby for England. I was really good at rugby, much better than I was at writing, and I wanted to put on the white shirt, wear the red rose on my chest… I am 81 now… it may happen still. I am quite available, if the England coach is watching. Inside centre was my place and I’m as fast as any 81-year-old will ever be!”
The talk ended with Michael’s fabulous answer to this final question, and some great advice for all: “What advice would you have for children interested in a career in writing? “
Michael’s response: “A great thing to do when you’re young is to live an interesting life. Which means: have lots of hobbies, do lots of stuff, go for walks, listen to people, read books. Because that fills your mind with a huge awareness of the world around you and of yourself. That’s what writer’s need. Live an interesting life and then, when you do write a story, write it as if you’re just telling it. It’s not a big deal. You’re just telling a story – we all tell stories and children are seriously good at telling stories! Write them down. Don’t be worried in the first place about whether it is tidy and about spellings – those can all be tidied up later. Just write it down. And then, when you’ve done it, read it through – that’s really important – and think to yourself “that’s alright!” It’ll make the next one easier to write. What you must never do – and a great poet, Ted Hughes told me this – what you must never do is give up. Writing, finally, is all about confidence… I’ve got to an age where I don’t really mind what people think. I just say what I want to say, tell the story I want to tell and writers do that all the time: they tell the story they want to tell. You pour your life into your writing.”