As part of LitFest’s 2026 schools outreach programme, LitFest celebrated World Book Day last week with two author events for local schoolchildren, with authors Jon Stock and Catherine Bruton.
With the National Year of Reading in 2026 focusing on helping people discover the joy of reading, both LitFest events demonstrated how meeting an author inspires schoolchildren to both read and to become writers themselves.
Local author Jon Stock visited St John’s Marlborough to to talk about his life as a fiction and non-fiction writer to a group of Year 10 and 12 pupils.
Over 350 pupils from Devizes School, St Margaret’s Calne and St Mary’s Calne took part in two creative writing workshops, led by the award-winning author Catherine Bruton. Catherine shared her secrets of how to write a great story and everyone followed the 7 steps to create their own story about an animal, inspired by Catherine’s book, Bird Boy. Catherine told the pupils about her own inspirations and encouraged them to use their own imaginations to get writing. The atmosphere was hushed and industrious as everyone wrote and then celebratory when some pupils chose to read out their work to their peers.
With many thanks to St John’s and St Mary’s School for hosting these events. It was a superb way to celebrate World Book Day, unleashing the creativity of young people. Both events demonstrated how inspiring it can be for schoolchildren to meet an author not only encouraging them to read but to write too.
(Photo credits: St John’s Marlborough for Jon Stock’s talk; St Mary’s Calne for Catherine Bruton’s event.)
A teacher from St Margaret’s Calne commented: ‘Thank you very much for inviting the St Margaret’s Y6 children to this morning’s Marlborough Lit Fest event with Catherine. It was fantastic. The children were absolutely engrossed and continued talking about their stories throughout the afternoon. Catherine not only inspired them to write, but also to take risks with their writing and not to give up. There is a queue forming to read the book she has donated to the school library.’
These LitFest free schools’ events are made possible by kind donations from our Friends of LitFest as well as festival sponsorship.