The other night I gave the after dinner talk for @The_UKLA conference. I was last at the conference two years ago and so honoured to be asked back to speak and entertain again.
This year’s conference has been focusing on Creativity, Criticality and Empowerment and so I spoke a bit about my experience with literacy, which was less than smooth, and how that informed my practice. First as a creative literacy practitioner running projects in schools with teachers over many years via Creative Partnerships (a govt initiative to find creative ways of accessing the curriculum) and more recently as a childrens author.
I spoke about the need to honour childrens voices and to help heal the world by teaching children that there is power in their words and giving them the tools to recognise the voices of others. I also got to read some poems from my poetry collections #WerewolfClubRules and #OverheardInATowerBlock. I was thrilled to see the attendees rolling up their sleeves to get a taste of being a kid in a workshop for the evening. They covered the swanky dinner hall in the hotel in post-it notes adorned with similes, read their similes in silly voices and shared their poems.