Derby Book Festival 2020 publications now available to buy
Derby Book Festival’s 2020 books of Derby students’ writings and illustrations are now available for sale on the Festival website.
Despite difficult conditions, the Festival’s Shared Writing Community Programme continued to work with 150 students from Derby secondary schools, Derby College and the University of Derby to produce two books this year. The first, ‘The World and Me’, contains poems by Year 8 pupils from Bemrose School, St Benedict Voluntary Catholic Academy and Murray Park Community School, alongside a selection of short prose and poetry pieces written and illustrated by students from Derby College and the University of Derby.
The second book, ‘Our Global Family: Lexis Stories’, is based on a series of writings by Derby College Lexis students about their journeys from their home countries to Derby and their new lives and studies as Lexis students (young people only recently arrived in the UK, many of them refugees and asylum seekers).
Kate Martin, Vice Principal at Derby College said: “We have worked with Derby Book Festival now for five years and feel that their projects add real value to the students. We are delighted by the quality and range of the work that the students contribute to the books. Luckily this year, much of the writing was completed before lockdown in March, but the art students had to finish their illustrations at home often under difficult circumstances. All the pieces are a response to the students’ thoughts and feeling about their place in the world, both now and in the future.”
The Festival is very proud to support all these young people and both books are now for sale via the Festival’s new e-commerce facility on their website. You can view the books online and watch videos from the July Shared Writing Celebration event. The videos contain more information about the Shared Writing programmes and include readings by the students of their poems and pieces. You can also find links in the Shared Writing and Lexis archive pages.
Both books are produced with the kind support of local design agency, BurntheBook.
Find out more about Derby Book Festival online.