Glenn Patterson helps celebrate Crosswords – a cross-community, cross-border creative writing project by Fighting Words Belfast and Fighting Words Dublin in North Belfast.
On Friday 3rd June children from Belfast and Dublin gathered at the Girdwood Community Hub with acclaimed author Glenn Patterson to launch an exciting new publication produced collaboratively with five schools participating in the Crosswords project.
Over ninety Primary 6 students from St Patrick's and Seaview Primary Schools (North Belfast) together with children from Nettlefield and Knocknagoney Primary Schools (East Belfast) and St George's National School in Balbriggan (County Dublin) joined to hear their final composition ‘The Race to Banana Land’. Each of the schools had contributed their own unique chapter to the adventures of a totally unforgettable character -Punkey the monkey -and his friends.
The story was the culmination of a 6 week creative writing project by Fighting Words Belfast, that took place at the Skainos Centre and the Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts, the young authors received a copy of their spine-tingling tale from local author and patron of Fighting Words Belfast, Glenn Patterson, who told the keen young writers;
'The best part of being an author is holding a published book, your book, in your hand, and you can all be very proud of having created a terrific story. I'm looking forward to the sequel.'
Geraldine Wilkins, Development Officer for Fighting Words Belfast said,
'This story, The Race to Bananaland which came out of the imaginations of 90 P6 pupils, demonstrates the enormous creative potential of our young people. The schools have been completely behind the project, and we look forward to working with them again in the future. Any school or community youth group can take advantage of our free workshops, which run year round. If any group would like to sign up for a session over the summer just go to www.youngatart.co.uk for full details''
