AN AWARD-WINNING author gave pupils some valuable advice when he visited a Winsford school.
Melvin Burgess, who recently won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, held workshops at Verdin High School for students in Year 7 and 8.
Pupils gained first hand experience of how a successful writer works and were given the opportunity to develop their own writing expertise.
Burgess’ novels Doing It and Junk have been described as controversial, but the North West author has been praised for engaging teenagers with reading through writing about various social issues.
School librarian Suzanne Heaven said: “Melvin has got a close relationship with the school and has been coming for the past three or four years.
“He is a very amiable character and is very interesting to talk to. The kids here just love his books.
“Some of his publications have been deemed to be controversial but he covers sensitive topics such as teenage sex and drug addiction is a sensitive and accessible way.
“Literacy is very important and this visit was part of the school’s English and literacy programme.”
Burgess’s books are written from a teenager’s perspective and his latest, Nicolas Cane, is a disturbing reworking of Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
