Shifnal pupils meet award-winning novelist
An award-winning novelist has visited a Shropshire school to inspire pupils about writing.
Jasper Fforde, the author of a series of novels starring detective Thursday Next – including The Eyre Affair - visited Idsall School in Shifnal.
Mr Fforde gave a series of talks to pupils from Year Seven and Year Eight, as well as a group of gifted and talented pupils about what his life is like as a writer and how to work on their own writing.
Paula Hazlehurst, school librarian, said: "We were delighted to have him, the children have been reading some of his books to get ready.
"Because he has so many books, he has written around 14, we had the children reading different ones which was good to see. Some of the gifted and talented pupils said they felt they had learned something from him they wouldn't have learned from their English teachers because he was actually out there and doing it, which was really interesting."
Mr Fforde spoke to the larger groups about how he got into writing and how important creativity is, while he gave the smaller group a step-by-step guide on what to do when writing.
Mrs Hazlehurst said: "I think it is important for children to have these sort of opportunities because in the larger groups we had some children who were in set four and may never have been interested in English or Maths before."
