Lou Abercrombie, author and photographer, received a very warm welcome from pupils when she visited Pocklington School recently to talk about her life as a writer.
Pupils from Years 5 and 6 from Prep School and Lower School pupils from Senior School, were fascinated, as she told them about herself and where she gets her author ideas and inspiration from.
Steph Saunders, Pocklington School Librarian commented: “The best thing about Lou’s visit was that she showed pupils that being a writer isn’t some impossible-to-imagine dream. She told us how she draws inspiration from the world around her – the people she meets, the places she sees, the things she loves to do. It made the process of writing seem like such a holistic process, rather than a separate part of her life.”
Swimming is a great love of Lou’s, and her first two novels feature swimming as a central theme – although the stories are very different. Fig in ‘Fig Swims the World’ can’t swim initially but sets herself the challenge of swimming around the world. Coco from ‘Coming Up For Air’, loves to swim and has a natural talent at freediving. Both novels are aimed at readers 10+.
Steph continued: “It was great to see how her passion for one thing feeds into her writing and then leads on to research about something else for another story idea. Lou doesn’t just sit back and read about things – she (quite literally!) throws herself into the deep end and experiences them.”
Following Lou’s visit, one pupil said: “I found the author visit really interesting. My favourite part was where Lou told us about learning to free dive and then she got us all to see how long we could hold our breath! I also really liked it when she told us about the photo of her baby underwater being the starting point for her ideas for Fig.”
A report published by the National Literacy Trust in 2019, showed that ‘author visits to schools have a positive relationship with children and young people’s reading skills, and their enjoyment and confidence in reading and writing,’ as well as many other benefits. Click here to read more about the report https://bit.ly/Litreport.
So, huge thanks to Lou – what a truly inspiring afternoon!
