Author Visit: Nicky Singer

On the 1st of November, award-winning author Nicky Singer, visited Sha Tin College. Singer is known for her children’s novel ‘Feather Boy’, which won the Blue Peter Book of the Year award and was also adapted into both a musical and a television series on BBC. Other well known books written by her include ‘Knight Crew’ and ‘Island’.

Several English classes were invited to attend the prestigious writer’s workshop, in which they were each asked to share stories and ideas about themselves in relation to a spurring question. Nicky Singer also discussed the reason behind writing narratives, and concluded it was to ‘take us into an alternative world we’d never be able to experience in the realistic mind.’.

The invigorating question in one particular workshop was : “The moment when…”. Each student had to think of a moment when they were struck in a way, whether be it emotionally or physically. A particularly interesting story of two warring parents caught Singer’s attention and she asked the student to expand upon it. After the student iterated her emotionally exhilarating story, Nicky used that prompt (named ‘the Argument’) to which students wrote a story about. Emotive narratives were soon written by the budding young writers and shared amongst the class. Nicky encouraged them to ‘be nosy’ as writers and incessantly cajole people for information, although it had gotten her into ‘deep trouble’ quite a few times!

Sophia Chung, Jean Thomas, and Sayeeda Urbana had the chance to interview Nicky during her visit. In the interview, Nicky talked about how she started writing. She explained, “I wrote a story about a giraffe when I was six years old, and I won a bar of chocolate for it!” She encourages anyone who has an idea to jot it down as it might grow in to something more.

When asked about her working environment, she answered, “I like to write in complete silence, it allows me to think. It drives my husband insane!” She also mentioned how she likes her to write in her own office in her house and is unable to think ‘on the run’ as she is too easily distracted by the intermittent noises around her. She stated how every writer had their own way of writing and have different reasons which compel them to write.

Thank you to Nicky Singer for giving us her time and to the staff for organising the visit!

Isabella Young, 10D1