Georgia Rose joins us at Brilliant Books

Up and coming romantic suspense writer, Georgia Rose visited us from her lair down in the beautiful south. Here she is, practicing her big moment. 

If you would like to get to know her further, here's a recent interview she underwent.

Georgia's Interview At The Wizard's Cauldron

A good friend of mine, Georgia was scheduled to join us in January for the second tranche, but due to a last minute cancellation from the only author scheduled for this round, she kindly agreed to step in at short notice. 

A successful Director of several companies and writer of two very well received novels, the kids were excited to meet her.

Firstly - to great applause and excitement - she read from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

(Obviously not the first edition, most of which
are now kept in bank vaults)

...and later, from Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful.

Here's what Georgia had to say about the day:

"I was delighted, and felt very honoured, to be asked to come to one of the Brilliant Books days to talk to a group of 9 and 10 year olds about my career and how reading has helped me to succeed. I was introduced as Georgia Rose so had the opportunity to explain to the children what a pen name was and that I also have ‘real’ name. 

Whilst telling them that they could call me by either they insisted on calling me ‘Miss’ which I found adorable. 

I told them I was an avid reader as a child, though only really remember reading, and re-reading Enid Blyton books early on and I showed the children my favourite book, The Secret of Killimooin, (which I notice is on sale on Amazon for 1p, and that’s for the hardback version! What a bargain!) 

My copy sadly has lost its front cover somehow over the years and was looking very battered. The children were unimpressed ha ha ha. I explained that throughout school they would have to read set texts, some of which they would like, some of which they wouldn’t but that sometimes they would have to knuckle down and get on with those that didn’t appeal as much.  

I talked first on my ‘other’ career - what I do when I’m not writing. I’ve built up my company, which provides a variety of business services, so that I now work with 20 different businesses, of all sorts and with many different requirements. These businesses range from one man bands up to large consultancy practices which require maintenance of regular director level meetings at the Institute of Directors in London. This all keeps me busy but throughout all of these years I’ve never stopped reading, wherever and whenever I can. In fact I can’t imagine a day without reading.

Then came the writing and whilst I thought the children might think that once I was writing my own stories I didn’t need to read any more I explained to them that the reading became even more important.

I asked the children if they liked writing, if they found it easy, and was faced with many shaking heads. I tried to impress upon them how the more they read the easier they would find writing. Everything they read informs their writing improves their vocabulary and increases their knowledge as well as firing up their imagination. 

I pointed out how you get so much more from reading a book than by watching a film. The depth of the descriptions about emotions and settings are so vivid and if they read they will be able to start adding more of this into their writing. 

 I then asked who preferred reading non-fiction and most, if not all, of the hands that went up belonged to boys. We discussed the sort of non-fiction they liked, space, football, cars, amongst others and there was great excitement when I brought out the Guinness Book of World Records 2012. Many liked this and I explained it was the sort of book that was the preferred choice of my son who was a reluctant reader of fiction. I also impressed on them that it didn’t matter what they read. If they preferred absorbing the facts of non-fiction rather than losing themselves in the storyline of fiction that was absolutely fine just as long as they kept reading. 

The second session took place in a classroom and using my genre of romantic suspense Phil spoke to the children about Lord Byron, perhaps the finest romantic poet of all time (from Nottinghamshire, a county with an incredible literary heritage - Ed).

The idea for the afternoon was for the children to write a poem on whatever was their favourite thing then they got down to work. I really enjoyed this part and joined one table to help support the children in their writing. I was impressed by the ideas that started to flow when we chatted about their favourite things and they soon started getting the words down. Several finished this piece of work and moved onto writing Haikus!

 They were lovely to work with and the hour flew by, it had really been a great day and I’d encourage anyone who is offered the chance to do this to grab it with both hands".

Brilliant Books is funded by the Big Lottery Fund - your £2 goes further than you think

Thank you, Georgia. The young people were most impressed with the work you did and we hope you can come back and help us next year.

Next week, I talk to Phil Pidluznyj, the lead facilitator, about his love of reading and why Brilliant Books is important - and at this age too.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

"A Single Step" Cake