School Visits
I am a northern-based publisher with a background in Drama facilitation and Arts Marketing. I feel very passionate about engaging young people in creative writing and especially poetry, because I feel that poetry can get a bad rep! I'm keen to both challenge and excite young people and inspire them to put pen to paper.
Feedback from a recent visit to The King's School:
"Isabelle delivered a 25-minute presentation to two separate groups of Year 8 pupils (12/13 years old), each of around 65 in number. This consisted of a very attractive and highly engaging PowerPoint for one talk, whilst the absence of a projector necessitated the other being delivered entirely by Isabelle at the front with handouts of poems. The presentations, and Isabelle's work in general, were extremely impressive with some really strong messages about poetry, about the environment but also about sheer doggedness and making a success out of yourself at such a young age!
They covered her career to date, including her route into publishing; her work with poets and scientists aimed at raising awareness of environmental and charity issues; her own poetry writing; and the Planet in Peril competition, which she encouraged King's students to become involved with. It ties in neatly with a project on ecocriticism that we launch with this year group in a few weeks, so we used the remaining 30 minutes to discuss this and practice writing our own poetry on the topic that could form the basis for the competition entries. She spoke in a very confident manner, perfectly pitched at the age group with humour, in spite of the very serious message, discussing the creation of 'found' poetry and poetry based on scientific articles, with reference to a number of examples. The pupils and staff enjoyed the talk immensely. She also fielded questions about criticism of her own work and the route into publishing.
We discussed the idea of making this an annual fixture to tie in with the ecocriticism project, and even the possibility of compiling and publishing an anthology of King's pupils' poetry. We would be delighted to have Isabelle back into school next year."
- Richard Kellett, Head of English, The King’s School Macclesfield
I would be delighted if you would like me to visit your school to do either a talk or a workshop, to any age group. To organise this and discuss details please email Isabelle Kenyon:
Please note, that without coverage of travel expenses, I will be unable to visit your school.