Our Little Green Pig writers have arrived in France! We are taking part in a project commissioned by New Writing South and french company ‘La Passe Muraille’ called ‘Notre Ville by the Sea.’  Twelve of our young writers aged from 10 to 16 have travelled to Cayeux-sur-Mer in northern France, where we’ll be working with twelve French young people from a local school to take part in writing, drama, art and sound workshops. We’ve brought English writer Rosanna Lowe with us, plus Clare and Gilbert from Unpacked Theatre. We’ll also be working with French artists and writers too, and at the end of the week we’re putting on a spcial performance of the work we’ve created to open Cayeux’s festival, ‘Les Mousaillons.’.

Highlights from the our first day include having fun exploring the ferry on our crossing to Dieppe, running around on the beautiful beach at sunset (see photo!), a twilight spooky tour of a lifeboat muesum and trying to guess what on earth Leo was trying to act out in charades (we gave up after ten minutes). Tomorrow we will be diving into our first day of workshops and I’ll be handing over to our young writers to give you their updates about our trip. Thank you to New Writing South for inviting us along on this great project!

Ella

We had fun a few sessions back in our Saddlebacks group chopping up and rearranging  newspaper headlines and using them to write news stories. Here’s 13 year old Eddie’s witty story on an out-of-control toddler:

He Can Do Whatever But We Can’t Do A Thing

Oliver Wilson has become the world’s youngest serial thief. After being filmed participating in the London looting and having reported to the local police over 70 times, the East London community is in despair. He has been headlined over the globe as the hooded hooligan and his parents are disgusted with his attitude. They have been evicted from several estates due to their infant son’s  ASBOs and cruel behaviour. He has been said to have started his antisocial behaviour at 18 months when he scared a fellow infant with a broken rattle at a “Mummy and Me” Class and his behaviour has gone downhill from then. Though his behaviour is intolerable, psychotherapists say there is still hope. But with 20 thefts, 9 assaults and even 1 attempted murder, is there really a place for this crime fiend? Even if there is, it cannot be found in London as he has only two regions he is allowed to be in. It seems life is not going to be easy for this heartbroken family.

A big congratulations goes out to Hannah, one of our writers in our Saddlebacks group. Hannah was a winner in the Television category in the The Guardian’s young arts critics 2011 competition, with her hilarious review of reality TV show ‘The Bachelor’. You can read Hannah’s winning entry here on The Guardian website – just scroll down to find her piece.  Well done Hannah, we’re sure we will be seeing more of your future writing in print.

A few weeks ago with our Piglets and Spots writing groups, we wrote from the perspective of animals. Seven year old Morgan from the Piglets group chose to write from the perspective of a tortoise – not just any household tortoise though, but a tortoise who lives in Africa:

Tortoise

I wake up and smell leaves. I can see a panther. I wander over the leaves very slowly. I eat the big leaves. I can hear the tiny hummingbirds, stealing the webs from the spiders. I can hear the rhinos fighting with their clunking horns, and a howler monkey howling.

Isn’t the line about the hummingbirds great?  If you could be any animal for a day, what would you be?

We’ve been writing about ourselves and the ‘real me’ in our recent writing workshops. In our Saddlebacks group for 12 to 18 year olds we had five minute writing bursts  that answered questions about ourselves and our lives. Here’s Sian’s response to ‘Where’s your favourite place in your home?’

‘In my home I like the windows that open wide over large drops. I like to stand and look out, hear and smell the city, wonder how far the fall is. I like to perch on a sill not meant to be seat and watch the night sky while shivering. It makes me feel spiritual and alive and small. And sometimes, when I sit there with all my thoughts jittering out in the thick chilling air, I forget to care about what’s fair and unfair, and for the minute I’m just htere, with that great expanse of bluish black and the stars.’

Isn’t that beautiful? What’s your favourite spot in your home and why? Leave your answer in the comments.

If you would like to join our Saddlebacks writing workshops, we currently meet once a month at Brighton Youth Centre. FInd out more on our workshops & events page.

Following on from Eva revealing her true identity, her is Naoise’s story of who she is and where she comes from. She may look like a normal nine year old girl (see photo above) but do you have any idea what she really is? Read on to find out…

‘I’m kind of alien. I mean, I look like a normal human being but I’m not. I was born in the secret depths of a planet called Critlien. It’s quite close to Pluto, the dwarf planet, and we’re lucky humans haven’t discovered it yet. I was christened with the na,e Lenkandomondi and I looked like any other baby on the planet so my alien parents set me to school by the time I was 107. Just one thing  - us aliens grow up quicker than humans and 107 is really young for us! But I was a disappointment. Yes, I could do all the norma alien stuff like dividing and multiplying (things, not numbers). But I couldn’t do proper alien things like making things disappear purely by thinking about them and making things levitate by tapping them exactly 29 times. So the teachers decided I would only be good for one thing – spying.

This meant I had to go down to earth with a team of other aliens (which the the earthlings call my family) and get information from humans about earth. I had to change my name to Naoise because Lenkandomondi was just too odd for a human. So after about, say, 75 years of preparing, we went down. It was odd. The ground was covered with little green lines and there was a muddy blue splishy thing at the edge of the land. The end of the world’s what I call it.’

What did you think of Naoise’s story? Leave us a comment. Or let us know who the ‘real you’ is…

Fire girl

I was born in the sun and I live on the earth. My job is a secret spy. I am spying on my little sister because she is trying to take all of my super powers away. My real name is Fire girl instead of Eva. My super powers are being invisible and turning into flames. My parents died because they were bitten by a crocodile on the legs and then eaten up by a dragon in Australia.

Great story, Eva. We look forward to seeing you turn into flames at our next workshop!

If you would be interested in coming along to any of our writing workshops, find out more at our workshops & events page.