Remember when Reading Activists from across the country spent a brilliant week on an Arvon writing course last autumn? Well now, as part of ongoing creative writing work, Reading Activists in Portsmouth and Sunderland have organised follow up events.

Celia Bryce (pictured above), author of the new novel Anthem for Jackson Dawes dropped by City Library in Sunderland, while Arvon mentor and poet Caroline Bird paid a visit to Reading Activists HQ in Portsmouth.

Photos from Caroline's writing workshop

You can view more photos from the event on the Reading Activists Portsmouth Facebook Page.

Feedback on Celia's writing workshop from Reading Activists

Emma T: "Meeting Celia Bryce was a real opportunity. The writing exercises and activities we did were great ways of surfacing creativity and Celia's work was really enlightening."

Emma H: "Celia taught us great techniques on how to fill up pages in creative writing without making the writing boring with narrative summary, so instead she suggested we use dialogue. I really enjoyed the book, as the characters were well presented, and Celia has struck the right balance between the amount of narrative summary and dialogue. I would genuinely recommend the book."

Faith: "Meeting Celia Bryce inspired me to write more often and even some day think about writing my own book. It was also interesting to learn new exercises I could use again which would improve my writing skills and help with any amount of writing I need to do in the future."

Christine: "I really enjoyed working with Celia because she gave us tips on how to create a book. She gave us some writing tasks and showed us how to look at objects in more detail in order to create imaginative writing which will help me in the future. Meeting Celia allowed me to see how other authors such as her write books so I can get some ideas of myself for the future. We did activities where we had to read our work to each other; I liked this because it allowed me to see how other people look at certain things so when I write about my characters I can write it in their point of view. I'm glad that I met Celia as now I have a better insight to writing and how to do it."

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