Design your own book cover Competition

This Valentine's Day inspired competition proved popular; here are some of our favourite entries.

By Diem 10E

By Epaphrodite 7H

By Zahra 7H

By Reem 11T

Guardian Open Weekend

This weekend I took two fourteen year old students from EGA, Khadra and Mahmuda to the Guardian Open Weekend. The youth events that we had tickets for all took place in The Hub, Kings Cross. What a lovely space it was - an old looking building with a contemporary feel. The first seminar we went to was run by Sara Shamsavari, artist: How to make a photograph tell a story, where we looked at basic photography techniques and discussed a selection of photographs. Next we visited Candy Gourlay, author of Tall Story where she videoed the girls talking about their favourite books.

In her own words:

'Yesterday I spent the day filming children at the Guardian's first Open Weekend which was like the Hay Festival except in the middle of King's Cross. I loved meeting young people and finding out what they loved to read. (These photos are just screenshots from the videos) I also asked them what advice they would give someone who finds it hard to read. Brilliant answers! I'm hoping to interview more children, I just need to finish writing my novel then I'll be looking for more filming opportunities. The film will be screened at the Pop Up Festival on June 30.'

                           PS And here is a bird that Khadra painted in the watercolour workshop

http://on.fb.me/GNLLEF

Here is my photograph of Khadra being filmed by Candy (using techniques learnt...!)

On Sunday we visited the Book Barge - a kind of floating book shop where the girls were impressed with the childrens selection.

Then it was back to the Hub for two sessions with Meg Rosoff. The first was on her latest book 'There is no dog' where God is a teenage boy called Bob. Meg discussed starting writing and finding the voice which makes each of us individual and the experiences that shape us. The audience ranged from about eight to adult and was very enjoyable. Then there was a short break, where I spoke to Meg and we talked about her visiting EGA and she signed the EGA library copy of 'There is no dog.'  

Creative writing with Meg Rosoff was the next session, once again catering to all ages. She got us thinking about ourselves and the experiences and emotions we could bring to writing, gave us some questions to answer and we discussed them as a group. Mahmuda commented afterwards that she wished it had lasted for another hour!    

  

                       

We had a quick look around the Guardian Offices at Kings Place but it was very crowded - the best bit was The Three Pigs display in the foyer, based on the making of the TV advert!                         

The new LRC takes shape!

I went on another site tour this week - I couldn't wait to see what the new LRC looked like. 'A building site' my husband commented, but I can get a much better idea of what it will look like. The view over the London

skyline is fabulous!