Schools Writing Competition

Students at secondary school in Hampshire and neighbouring counties were invited to write a 200-300 word novel opening. The standard was very high and deciding on only 3 winners was extremely difficult. The other judges included the education officers at the museum and Professor Kathryn Sutherland, one of the museum's patrons.

Professor Sutherland said, "It is not an easy thing to write an opening for a work that has no further existence on paper but nonetheless resonates and suggests the possibility of growth in the reader’s imagination. The best entries for this new ‘Jane Austen writing competition’ rose to the challenge by combining strong invention, economy of detail, and suspense – the sense of something about to happen."

The winning entrants were invited to celebrate their success by reading their opening and having tea and cake in the sunny garden at the museum. Here are a few photos of the awards afternoon for the Schools Writing Competition.

Other Things I Haven't Written About Yet

Some things at the Museum still astonish me. I am constantly amazed by how few paid staff there are, and by how few of these are full-time. I still can’t believe that Louise (Education and Collections) isn’t full-time. She does so much and constantly comes up with new ideas and projects and most importantly, pulls them off. And Madelaine (Marketing and Publicity) is only paid for about one day each week. This is astonishing too. Here is a museum of international significance with a one day/week marketing person! The visitors see this gorgeous, gorgeous place, and meanwhile there is a tiny team of people working flat out behind the scenes.
When you come to the Museum, have a look at the steps that go up to the office next to the Bakehouse. These are quite scary steps to use. They are ancient and wooden with some chicken-wire to make them less treacherous. I always worry that I’m going to be the one to break them, but once up them, it’s easy to imagine the office as it was - a place for storing grain or apples.
The swallows in the barn (that bit of barn next to the shop) have fledged. They are well ahead of the swallows on Springwatch where fledged now seems to mean “able to fly”. I think that it used to be the term for having acquired feathers. I do have a slight Springwatch fixation. My son, Eddie, and I watch in horror and fascination. Oh, why won’t they ever let poor Simon King into the studio, or to within a few hundred miles of the other presenters? Why are creatures so beastly?
I have met Chris Packham’s mother - a fabulous, dynamic person who invited me to open her church fete - one of the nicest and most peculiar things that has ever happened to me. I felt as though I had fallen into a Barbara Pym novel - just about my idea of heaven. Chris Packham’s sister, Jenny, designs gorgeous and very glamorous dresses - she was at the fete too. I have yet to meet Chris Packham, even though he once spent a day standing outside our house with binoculars - an incident that made it into my first novel. He was with a flock of twitchers photographing some waxwings that had alighted on the rowan trees at the top of our road. Ah ha, the watcher watched.
In the unlikely event that anybody wonders why I have written nothing for over a month and now have written three things in one day, it's because my proper job is being a teaching fellow at Southampton University. I have just emerged from about two months of non-stop marking - about half a million words of students' writing since Easter. Now I'm catching my breath before tackling MA assignments and finishing that novel, so really this one should be called "Other Things I Haven't Written Yet." And that novel is what I should be writing.

The Prize-Giving

Last Wednesday we had the prize-giving for the writing competition. It was a gorgeous day and almost all of the winners came to collect their prizes and eat cake with their parents and friends. It was lovely meeting them and hearing them read their work out loud. It was a real highlight of my time here. The winning entries are up on the website now in the “Schools” section - have a look. The only bad thing about it was seeing myself in some of the photos afterwards. There’s nothing like standing next to a beautiful sixth-former to confirm one’s status as a big old hen.
I was so impressed by some of the writing, and when I think back to the complete garbage I was writing when I was their age… Even if they don’t go on to write the novels they’ve opened (and not many people finish the first novels - yes plural - that they start) I think that there is some real talent here.

Capturing The Kitchen

“ I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. ”

and I’m sitting writing this on the bench in the “historic kitchen”. I guess people at the Museum call it the historic kitchen because there is another secret, less historic kitchen backstage - a kitchen where paperbacks are swapped and the biscuit tin is never empty Visitors often say that the (historic) kitchen is one of their favourite places. For most of the residency it has been so cold that sitting in here for more than a few moments has been impossible; not so today.
It’s raining and the door is open and the birds are singing outside so perhaps the rain is going to stop, or perhaps they are just always singing here. There are roses around the door.
Walking into Chawton today, I felt so sad. I can’t bear the thought that all this is going to carry on without me. When my residency is over, I shall just have to haunt the Museum. Well actually my residency is kind of over, but I’m still hanging about with some things to finish, I’ll be there for the writing group for a while at least, am watching in awe as Catherine fashions the writing we’ve collected into a beautiful artist’s book, and (listen for strains of the theme from Titanic) my blog will go on! We are planning more writing workshops for the autumn and winter too.
Before I take my last X64 bus back to Winchester, there are a few things that I want to say…