Hayley Long's Blog Type Thing: Felixstowe Docs Part 2

What an absolute marvel Felixstowe Book Festival is and what UTTER STARS are all those young writers from Felixstowe Academy who came along to Felixstowe Library last Friday evening in order to read their poems to an audience of 80+ people. I knew we'd definitely have a committed few who would turn up and do their school proud - but in the end, we had 22!!! And here they all are! (I snuck on to the Twittery thing and borrowed this lovely picture from @FXA_English - the account of Felixstowe Academy's English Department).

It was a really emotional evening. I am a woman of flinty steel but even I had a misty-eyed moment when Oliver (Year 7) stood up, took a firm grip of the microphone and boomed, 'WHEN I THINK OF HOME, I THINK OF CHICKEN CHAR GRILLS...'

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Who couldn't be moved by a sentiment as pure and relatable as that?

And then there was Alyssia with her brilliant 'Mosquito Bitten Knees' and Matthew with his film called 'Saturday Bike Hike' which had an excellent Jamiroquai soundtrack and all sorts of camera trickery going on - and Sunnie with her bitter-sweet 'Good Times Beach Huts' and Connor with his 'Enjoyable Times at the Skate Park' and... and... honestly, it was all so good! And the future of Felixstowe is in safe hands.

If you want to see the beautiful little book that we all made together, pop into Felixstowe Library and check it out. But here's a flavour of how lovely it is...

When I go to schools, I'm often asked which of my books I like the best. This isn't my book - but I'm proud to have had a hand in it and...you know what?... I think this is my favourite anyway.

All 46 contributors got a complimentary copy - as every writer should. They also got one of these beautiful T-shirts from BLOC (Building Libraries on Creativity - the Suffolk Libraries' Youth Arts Programme.) On Saturday - following our Friday triumph - I spent a lovely day with some of these young writers. You can see us here modelling our T-shirts. I am told this is called a Boomerang. If you look closely, you will see that the only old person in this film is also the only one who is not able to jump and make a clean landing.

And here is the special message on the back of our t-shirts.