School Visits: Bury St Edmonds & London

It's been a busy week – I've visited four schools!  First up was Francis Holland School in London, where I talked to the Junior Girls, some of whom were already Varjak Paw fans!  There were lots of great questions, and lots of people interested in my new book Phoenix as well.  Among the audience was the book blogger moontrug, and she's made a fantastic post about it on her site – have a look at the link, it's really great!

Then I visited three schools in Bury St Edmonds, on a trip organised by the brilliant Philip Daws of Waterstones.  We started with Westley Middle School, where I talked to the Year 7s, and was interviewed by some Young Reporters (hopefully there'll be a link here soon, so you can see the interview!)  One of the Year 7s I met has just left me this wonderful comment here on my site:

You had an author visit at Westley in B.S.E and you were really interesting. You signed my copy of phoenix and i really enjoy it. me and my friend louis are having a competition to see who can finish it the first and im on chapter 8. I think im now going to read some more.
From Joey Turner

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me such a brilliant comment, Joey! Good luck with your competition, I hope you and your friend enjoy the rest of Phoenix... let me know what you both think when you get to the end!

The second school we visited was Hardwick Middle School, where I talked to the Year 7s again, and had some really great questions about writing and books.  Finally, we went to St. James Middle School, where I showed the Year 7s the Phoenix book trailer.  We had a few technical problems getting it to work, so for anyone who wants to see it again, here it is:

If anyone from any of those schools would like to leave a comment about the visit, or my books, or anything else, this is the place to do it!  It's always great to hear from readers – after all those years it takes me to write a book, there is nothing nicer than someone saying that they're enjoying it!