Friday 4 October 2013 For writer Marcus Sedgwick, a garden shed is more than a place to store the lawnmower, as he told pupils on a visit to The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) this week. An award-winning author of young adult fiction, Marcus got his audience of year 9 pupils involved by showing them pictures of where he works every day – a shed at the bottom of his garden – and asking them to select an object in the photo to quiz him about. From Star Wars to spirals, or simple words and numbers, the images on the shed wall triggered fascinating insights into how Marcus approaches his writing. For example, Star Wars serves as inspiration whenever he suffers ‘writer’s block’ – like many fantasy stories it follows a standard structure for the journey of the archetypal hero. The word PLAY pinned to the wall reminds him that although writing is sometimes easy and sometimes not, it’s important to play and enjoy it! Marcus said: “The pupils have been a delight and made my life easy as a speaker by asking good and pertinent questions. I ask them to choose the objects they are curious about, so they feel they have invested something in the presentation. “It’s good for me to come out to schools because as a writer it’s easy to sit and work at home and become introverted. I love chatting to young people – teenagers get a bad write up but I meet great, intelligent and smart teenagers every week.” Harshel Bahl, Hassan Iqbal and Harin Wijayathunga, year 9 pupils, agreed which of Marcus’ books was their favourite – Revolver, a psychological thriller set in a snowy Arctic wilderness. Harshel said: “We all read Revolver in class, so even though we had to read it, we were happy about it and wanted to read more!” Hassan said: “You have to think hard about what’s going on in the book. It was great to meet Marcus and get an insight into how he writes.” Harin said: “The subject of Revolver is appealing to our age group. It doesn’t make complete sense then all the threads come together. I enjoyed choosing items from the shed for him to talk about as we became part of what he told us.” Marcus Sedgwick has two new books due for publication this autumn – She is Not Invisible and Dark Satanic Mills, his first graphic novel, co-written with his brother Julian. General Senior School News
