Authors' Visits

11 February 2025: Alastair Chisholm

S2 classes

There was fantastic interaction, participation and engagement from our pupils with visiting author Alastair Chisholm.

S1 classes

In four amazing sessions, the takeaway message was:

Stories are social inventions.

They change the world.

Create stories.

Invent the future.

Queue for book signing

Alastair spent time chatting to pupils and signing their books, which all enjoyed.

Alastair met some of the Reading Leaders

Alastair met some of our Reading Leaders during coffee time, which they 😍 loved!

In between four busy sessions in school.

Brilliant books

Questions and Answers with Alastair

Author event in school: Tuesday 11 February for all S1 and S2 pupils

For more information about the books, please click on the book titles here:

Books and chat

We were delighted to welcome Alastair Chisholm to school on Tuesday 11 February, when he met all S1 and S2 pupils during several sessions in our assembly hall.

Library books available:

His books had been shared and discussed in library classes with pupils and copies can be borrowed from the library.

This visit was funded by Scottish Book Trust Live Literature programme.

Alastair is the author of the sci-fi adventures I Am Wolf, Reek, Orion Lost, Adam-2, and The Consequence Girl, the Dragon Storm series of young fantasy novels, and picture books The Prince and the Witch and the Thief and the Bears and Inch and Grub, amongst others.

You can find out more about him, or about his books here.

Week beginning 4 November: Royal Literary Fund The Bridge Writing Project with Cynthia Rogerson.

Advanced Higher pupils

What a pleasure to welcome the return visit of Cynthia Rogerson and a Fellow of The Royal Literary Fund to school over four days during the week beginning 4 November for a series of writing workshops.

Thanks so much to our visiting writer Cynthia Rogerson and The Royal Literary Fund for the writing workshops.

Cynthia said : "What a bright bunch!"

The pupils said: "We learned so much from Cynthia" .

Cynthia Rogerson

The Bridge is a series of workshops that help senior pupils develop their writing, as well as prepare for the challenges of more academic or formal writing at university, college or work.

The workshops are designed to help pupils overcome anxiety about writing and prepare them to face upcoming challenges. All RLF Bridge Fellows are professional writers who have been RLF Writing Fellows in universities, working one-to-one with students to develop their essay writing.

26 February: Author virtual event with Hiba Noor Khan

Hiba Noor Khan made her fiction debut with Safiyyah's War this year, sharing the true story of how hundreds of Jews sought refuge in Paris's Grand Mosque in World War Two. We enjoyed this virtual event as part of the Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour.

The RMPS pupils loved the interactive coding activity, as well as the presentation.

🕵️‍♂️ 🕵️‍♀️

Thank you Hiba Noor Khan and

Scottish Book Trust and Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour for a fabulous event. 📖 ❤️

There are copies of the wonderful Safiyyah's War on the library desk to borrow, read and enjoy.

We were delighted to hear that our application for the virtual event with Hiba Noor Khan had been successful. Safiyyah's War is a great read and... one of our staff members has visited the mosque in the novel.

Watching and sharing with RMPS pupils.

6 & 7 February: Royal Literary Fund Fellow Cynthia Rogerson with the Advanced Higher Biology class

Advanced Higher Biology class

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome return visits from Cynthia Rogerson: delivering The Bridge writing workshops with the Advanced Higher Biology class.

Her latest book: 'WAH! Things I Never Told My Mother' is available to borrow from the library.

Huge thanks to visiting author Cynthia Rogerson for delivering these two writing Bridge workshops to the Advanced Higher Biology class.

We love to have Cynthia , Fellow of The Royal literary Fund in school.

She said: "What a fabulous & motivated group this is to work with" TeamEA 👏.

The Bridge writing workshops

The Bridge is a series of workshops that help senior pupils develop their writing, as well as prepare for the challenges of more academic or formal writing at university, college or work.

30 November and 1 December: Alan Bissett

Author, Playwright, Perfomer.

We were very excited to welcome a return visit of Alan Bissett to school on Thursday 30 November and on Friday 1 December. Alan met all of the S2 and S3 cohorts; he delivered a creative writing workshop to an S5 Higher English class and worked with N5 Modern Studies classes. He also met families in our parental event on Thursday evening.

Alan shared his new book: Lads: A Guide to Consent and Respect and we have been delighted with the comments and feedback from pupils, staff, parents and others in our community. This is Alan's first non-fiction book, written for teenage boys, with the aim of helping them navigate relationships, negative online influences and social issues. While it’s aimed at young men, there’s also plenty in it for teenage girls, to help them define their own boundaries.

Some of the comments included:

Pupils:

· The workshop was so helpful and useful.

· The event was great.

· I am not a reader, but I am going to read this book.

· I liked how made the talk for our level (S2).

· He was funny and really good.

Parents and other members of our community:

· So important to have these events and conversations in school.

· Thank you so much coming into school and the way you delivered these sessions to my child.

· I'm going home to talk to my son about today's event.

· It was great to hear Alan Bissett’s talk about his book Lads: A Guide to Respect and Consent. This was a very important talk, particularly during the #16DaysOfActivism against gender-based violence. Thanks to Elgin Academy Library for this event!

· Can you have him back next year, please, as my son is currently in S1 and I would like him to hear Alan Bissett’s presentation.

We sold lots of copies of the books, which Alan signed for our pupils. Thanks to Yeadon’s of Elgin for supplying the books. Thanks to Scottish Book Trust and Live Literature Funding for enabling and supporting us to have this very successful visit.

1 December: Talk to N5 Modern Studies classes

The final Live Literature session from Alan Bissett, our visiting author for two days, was with Modern Studies classes.

Alan read and shared his book, Lads: a guide to respect and consent, with the pupils.

1 December: creative writing workshop with Alan Bissett

Our visiting author Alan Bissett was in school for day two with us.

First thing: a creative writing workshop with an English S5 Higher class.

Feedback from pupils: this was so helpful and so useful. Thanks, and a round of applause for Alan.

30 November: S2 and S3 cohorts with Alan Bissett

We enjoyed two sessions on Thursday 30 November with visiting author Alan Bissett.

S2 and S3 cohorts listened to Alan's talk about his book: Lads: a guide to respect and consent.

It was great to hear such enthusiastic feedback and the applause at the end of the sessions.

Lots of copies of Lads have been sold and Alan has signed them for pupils.

Huge thanks to Scottish Book Trust Live Literature Funding.for supporting and enabling us to have these events.

30 November: Alan Bissett event for parents and community

Comments from parents

So important to have these events and conversations in school.

Thank you so much coming into school and the way you delivered these sessions to my child.

Comment from local councillor

It was great to hear Alan Bissett’s talk about his book “Lads: A Guide to Respect and Consent”.

A very important talk, particularly during the #16DaysOfActivism against gender-based violence.

Thanks to @LibraryatEA for organising!

Comment from parent

I'm going home to talk to my son about today's event.

VID-20231130-WA0000.mp4

Little film from the parental event with Alan Bissett

Thanks to our Home Economics department for this film.

Staff enjoying Alan Bissett's presentation

It was great to see our staff enjoying the family session with Alan Bissett. This was a superb evening with our visiting author.

1 December 2022: Daniel Gray in school

All of the S1 cohort.
S4 creative writing workshop
Family event.

Daniel Gray is a copywriter, BBC screenwriter, researcher, TV presenter, event chair, podcaster, and video maker.

S4 creative writing workshop with Daniel Gray

Daniel delivered a creative writing workshop on Delights to an S4 English class.

Pupils were asked to think and write about the simple joys of life.

Delights will be used for folio writing in class.

S1 sessions with Daniel Gray

S1 pupils kicked off their first #teamEA author session with our visiting writer Daniel Gray on the morning of 1 December. Daniel talked to the pupils about finding what they enjoy, what their escape is and to read and write about it. In his case, his escape is football.

He read from his books and shared a local Elgin FC story too. Our pupils asked lots of questions, including: Who is Daniel's favourite team? Who is favourite footballer? How long does it take to write a football book and, the Big Q: Which team will win the World Cup? Daniel's answer: France!

There were questions about writing and Daniel gave lots of advice, including, it is good to keep a dairy. He also said, one of the best things to do for everything in life, is to read. Pupils shared their own stories about football and writing and there was a qood Q&A session at the end of the S1 sessions.

This visit was supported by Scottish Book Trust Live Literature Funding.

Family event 5.00 - 6.00pm.

The day ended with a lovely family event and included readings, good chat and sharing both life's delights and stories with our families who managed to attend. Scoring at improving literacy was a lot of fun! A bonus was, hearing about a football player with Elgin City FC who left Elgin to go to Russia to meet Lenin and, when he returned to Elgin, became a councillor. This was a great story and if any of our families know about this story and would like to share it, please let us know.

During the event in the library, we had activities and beanbags for younger visitors. Refreshments were provided too and some brought their own: the chips looked good! Books were available to both borrow and to buy and these were signed by Daniel.

Thanks to our S6s for their help and thanks to our families for coming along to this inspiring and entertaining event.

Huge thanks to Daniel Gray for our visit.

Page updated

Report abuse