Students lap up tale of horror (From Swindon Advertiser)

Students lap up tale of horror

8:40pm Friday 13th November 2009

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A CHILDREN’S fantasy writer gave a horror-filled speech to gripped youngsters at the Wyvern Theatre yesterday.

Darren Shan, whose novel, Cirque Du Freak, was recently made in to a Hollywood blockbuster starring John C Reilly, gave an hour long talk to hundreds of secondary school pupils as the Swindon Ten Youth Literature festival came to a close.

The London-born Irish author gave lively and dramatic readings from several of his novels, and offered youngsters advice about writing.

He said: “Anyone can write a book, you just need your imagination and a pen and paper.

“I often get asked for advice about writing and the best I can give is simply write.

“The more you write, the more you learn, the more you improve.

“I love horror but it is also important not to stick to just one genre when reading as it can limit you. I like to draw in ideas from various places.”

To the excitement of the crowd the author revealed he is working on a collection of four books centred around Mr Crepsley, a vampire from the Saga of Darren Shan.

As well as giving advice and answering questions, Darren called for four students to get on stage and act out a scene he narrated from Cirque Du Freak that involved a wolfman biting the arm off a fictitious audience member.

Darren said: “It’s been a great day today. The kids were great fun and the actors who took part on stage really got involved, which, to be honest, always makes it easier.”

Fiona Hardcastle, the learning centre manager at Dorcan, said: “Each school were given 50 seats and we’ve held competitions to see who were the biggest Darren Shan fans and they came along.

“They were all excited and he was absolutely superb today.”

Rebecca Bean, 12, from Dorcan Technology College said: “It was my Year Six teacher that started me off with his books. He got us all thinking of some good ideas.”

Horror book fan Liam Deans, 12, said he enjoyed listening to what Darren had to say.

“It’s good to know what it’s like from the author’s point of view,” he said.

After spending nearly an hour signing personalised gruesome messages to several lucky fans, Darren was quick to praise the Swindon Ten Youth Literature Festival.

He said: “I think it’s a great way to show the kids that reading can be fun.

“A lot of them associate reading with course work and think it’s purely geography and history text books.

“Things like this can really drive the point home to them.

“I travel round the world doing big events and one off festivals like this and today has been excellent and well organised.”

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