Poet and author Steven Camden visits Cheney

On Friday 14th June, Steven Camden, aka Polar Bear visited Cheney. Steven is the author of four fiction books and one poetry collection for young people and he is also a well-known performance poet. The life of students at secondary school is very accurately described in his books Stand Up Ferran Burke and his poetry collection, Everything All at Once; in my introduction to his sessions, I commented that it felt like Steven’s characters were sat in assembly when we said goodbye to year 11 the day before! 

Steven ran two (very) interactive writing workshops where he showed about 80 year 8 students how he comes up with ideas for his writing and then encouraged them to do the same by giving them a rough framework. There was an enthusiastic bubble in the library as the students came up with funny, creative and, on occasion, bizarre ideas either individually or as part of a group. He also treated us to some readings of his poems. Everyone left the sessions bursting with enthusiasm and it was great fun to host him in the library both at break and lunch when he chatted and laughed with everyone who came up for a chat. 

I intend to invite Steven back to Cheney next year - it was absolutely brilliant to see the students so fired up and enthused by creative writing. Thank you very much to my colleagues, Ms Jones, Miss Quantrell, Miss Hutson, Ms Mortimer and Mrs Hart for their support in making the event happen. 

Author visits are always stressful but I am so pleased that I made this one happen - it was an absolute blast! 

Steven’s website can be found here. 

Mrs Fenton

Cheney School Librarian.