I had the pleasure of attending my very first Newington College Literature Festival last week, and it was an incredible experience for all, myself included.

Having spoken to many staff and students and authors themselves, by all accounts it was an extremely successful Literature Festival.

Over the course of three days 36 authors, academics, poets, graphic novelists and performers inspired, entertained and enthralled both students and staff alike.

Some personal highlights from the Festival included:

• The great deal of hard work and effort put in by the Postscript student journalism team spearheaded by Ms Caterina Troncone and seeing the enormous amount that they learned and gained from the experience
• Riotous applause from Year 7 and Year 8 during the Spelling Bee with guest author Richard Harland, in his fantastically quirky steam punk hat and waist coat
• Meeting authors whose books I have read and admired, including one whom I read in my own high school days
• Sitting in on the Year 12 panel session on ‘Belonging’ with talks by authors Linda Jaivin, Benjamin Law, Randa Abdel-Fattah and Archimede Fusillo who all spoke from unique points of view, and yet whom experienced and seen disconcertingly similar experiences of belonging, wanting to belong and in fact, not belonging.
• Having a go at drawing cartoons alongside 7EngDor with graphic novelist, Mandy Ord
• Listening to Charlie Thomson aka ‘the Educator’ rap about literary devices and explaining that Shakespeare’s plays written in iambic pentameter totally lend themselves to rap