Photos: Doncaster Book Award and Bradford Reading Mentors Meeting

I was involved in a couple of great events last week, the Doncaster Book Award and Reading Matters termly Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting.

Doncaster Book Award

Gareth P Jones' novel The Thornthwaite Inheritance won the 2011 prize at a fabulous ceremony that I played a very small part in, I awarded the Creative Writing Prizes.

The day kicked off with a brilliant dance routine, with books! Lead by Lesley Hurworth, Chair of the Doncaster Book Award, and Reading Matters' Reading Leaders co-ordinator at the Armthorpe School.
Hosted by Dave Cryer, we were then treated to three brilliant performances by Phil Sheppard, The Two Steves and Tommy Donbavand:

Tommy's session, involved two lucky/unlucky candidates being turned into mummies like Cleo from the Scream Street Books:
It was a superb, packed day. I met all sorts of dedicated people, who all love to read!

Reading Matters Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting

Reading Matters termly Volunteer Reading Mentors in Bradford was a little calmer affair, but still thrilling to catch-up with so many people dedicated to developing reading skills.

Sheffield Poetry Festival

At the great World Book Night, I heard local authors from the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam University read from a their ‘Matter’ anthology and as a result found that, Fay Musselwhite's poem has been chosen by Simon Armitage for a Sheffield Poetry Prize.

Fay is one of our Reading Mentors. She is also involved in the first Sheffield Poetry Festival. She is collaborating with award winning filmmaker and taxidermist Susannah Gent to present a 30 minute performance piece called Goat Boy and Other Journeys, as part of the Sheffield Poetry Festival on Saturday 2nd April, 3pm at Bank Street Arts.

Sounds incredibly intriguing.

World Book Night 2011 at Waterstone's in Orchard Square, Sheffield

That's me at Waterstone's in Orchard Square, Sheffield on World Book Night, 5 March 2011. It really was a great evening. The Waterstones' guys really looked after me. Everyone was super friendly. Well, they were when I had explained that my copies of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time by Mark Haddon were for Reading Matters Reading Mentors, not just up for grabs!

Loads of familar faces turned up from schools and other settings, aplogies to anyone I didn't speak to very much, it was pretty busy for a while. I did sneak a peek at the other attractions:

• Rachel Genn reading from her forthcoming novel The Cure.
  
• Local band Nat Johnson and the Figureheads (very quiet even for a books hop, but cool)
  
• Local authors from the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam University read from a their ‘Matter’ anthology (as I was checking this out, I saw one of our very own Reading Mentor, Fay Musselwhite's poem has been chosen by Simon Armitage for a Sheffield Poetry Prize, brilliant)
  

World Book Night was all round a great evening, I am looking forward to what the Reading Mentors and their partners make of The Curious Incident. I almost ended up with more books than I started with! I have registered my interest for 2012, and I'm hoping some more books for young people are included, I'd suggest Holes by Louis Sachar, but what do I know!