Taking part were students from St Catherine’s College Singleton, St Mary’s Scone, St Patrick’s Swansea, Rosary Park Catholic School Branxton, St Joseph’s Wingham, St Patrick’s Lochinvar, Our Lady of Lourdes Tarro, St Brigid’s Raymond Terrace, St Joseph’s East Maitland, St Joseph’s Gloucester and St Mary’s Warners Bay.

During the day, which was hosted by the multi award-winning author Felicity Castagna, attendees discovered how to find inspiration for story ideas, explored language and learnt how to write a vignette.

The day began with students and teachers discussing the idea of place and drawing inspiration from their local community and surroundings. They played storytelling games with images that encouraged them to come up with stories about place and drew annotated maps of various spaces in their local community that they viewed as important.

Sharing vignettes from her own book The Incredible Here and Now, Felicity then explained to students the idea of a vignette and helped them identify spaces on their annotated maps they could turn into a vignette about place.

With further activities encouraging students to think more about language choices when writing, the day concluded with students writing vignettes, as they worked in groups and pairs to workshop their pieces.

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