News

Students and pupils meet award-winning author

(18 November 2003)

Students from the University and school pupils will have the chance to meet the award-winning local author, David Almond, at an event at Tanfield Comprehensive School this Wednesday (19 November). The event is part of Dr Pam Knights’s National Teaching Fellowship Project, and brings together students on her Children’s Fiction module, Tanfield pupils and staff, and one of the North-East’s most famous children’s writers.

David Almond will be talking to his readers, and giving children and students an opportunity to ask questions. He will also award the prizes in a writing competition for the children, which the students have been judging.

David Almond has won many top awards for his children’s books, including the Carnegie Medal for Skellig (the play previews at the Young Vic 21 November). His latest book, The Fire-Eaters, has been short-listed for a Whitbread Prize.

The opening sentences for the writing competition were supplied by David Almond and by one of the students, Ellie Tennant, whose work for Palatinate took her to the short-list of the recent Guardian student feature-writer of the year.

Dr Knights and her students are currently liaising with Susan Walker, a Durham graduate teaching at Tanfield School, and with the school English Department, as part of her NTFS Widening Horizons project.

For further information contact: pam.knights@durham.ac.uk.