Last week, I was lucky enough to do a couple of author workshops at the Rosalie Writers Festival.

Rosalie Primary School is a wonderful little school in Shenton Park, Western Australia. I say wonderful, because the kids there amazed me in every way.

My subject was “doggy dialogue”, based on my soon to be published book, ‘Seeing Dogs’.

I had two groups – year 2’s and year 5/6’s. Even though ‘Seeing Dogs’ is meant for ages 9 – 12, the year 2’s did a fantastic job of creating a really imaginative scene in the book. Never underestimate a seven year old!

And the year 5/6’s excelled in using all the elements of dialogue to write parts of a scene. I honestly thought some of them wrote better than me!

Now the most interesting thing – no, actually, there was more than one – was learning what kids like to read. As an author, this is vital and privileged information.

Some of the kids did a blogging workshop where they put down their thoughts about their favourite kinds of stories. And you can find out what kids aged 5, 6 and 11 like to read most.

Just click here and gain a valuable insight.

Then start writing your next story!