Nature Novels Free Creative Writing Project for Children aged 7-11 in the Liverpool City Region

Welcome to the introductory post about our exciting new FREE writing project for children aged 7-11 across the Liverpool City Region ("LCR").

This project is entirely funded by Arts Council England plus all six library services in the LCR: Halton; Knowsley; Liverpool; St Helens; Sefton and Wirral have provided support in kind.

The theme for this writing project is about nature and we are running two types of writing courses for children to take part in:
  • Nature Postcard Workshops: we are running 36 one-off workshops across the LCR - each lasting for 2 hours - where children can learn about the natural habitat around them and create a Postcard including writing a short story and an illustration
  • Stories about Nature Workshops: we are running 6 story courses, one in each of the 6 areas of the LCR and each course lasts for 2 x 2 hours.
To see where all our workshops are taking place including dates, times and venues please go to our Eventbrite page tinyurl.com/bdeu96kb (please note that the Stories about Nature workshops will be added in late June).

Nature
For our 2025 summer writing project across the LCR the theme will be about nature. We will look at nature within the LCR and learn about concerns including biodiversity loss and pollution and see what ways we can all try and help nature thrive.

Some of the postcard sessions will actually be out in venues surrounded by nature for example Birkenhead Park in Wirral. We have also teamed up with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and will use some of the resources they have created as part of their Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

Postcard Workshops
At the end of these sessions the postcards can be displayed in the venue where the workshops took place before being collected by the children to keep.

Stories Workshops
On these longer courses, we will help children write a story about nature which can then be included into a published anthology. Everyone who submits a short story will receive a free copy of the anthology and extra copies will be placed onto the catalogues of all six library services in the LCR.

Here is a picture of the anthology, full of children's stories, when we delivered the Climate Champions creative writing project in the LCR in 2024.





Who will be running these courses
Charlie Lea, Natalie Denny and Joseph Roberts will be running the postcard sessions across the region and Charlie Lea will run all the Stories workshops. All have enhanced DBS certificates.

Showcasing the Stories
As well as having the stories published into an anthology we will also hold a storytelling celebration event at Liverpool Central Library during autumn 2025 where the new authors can read out their stories to an audience. Here are some of the children who read out their stories at our Climate Champions project in 2024.





Here is some of the feedback from last year's Climate Champions project:

  • I found it fabulous.
  • Everything worked well and nothing could be better. I had a brilliant time and I'm so proud of the book and my story.
  • Charlie and the team made it a very wonderful experience. Thanks so much.
  • Just to say a big thanks to Charlie! A great course.
  • Charlie was amazing and it is something that the kids will always have so well worth it.
  • The course was very good and we enjoyed Charlie’s style of engagement. He made us laugh a lot and made learning enjoyable. We liked the spoken word session as everyone was very supportive. We feel that the course challenged us to stand up in front of people to share our stories - it was nerve wracking but staff helped us feel confident.
  • The course was very well organised with lots of varied content and excitement to attend each week. Writing the story up prompted lots of research and interest and got us thinking about the changes we can make as a household. The celebration event was fantastic and super impressive that so many young people had the opportunity to share their writing and the confidence and support to do so. Thank you for arranging this, it was great from start to finish.
  • The communication from Charlie was excellent both before and after the event. The course was a great mix between fun and learning.
  • The course was brilliant - it was our daughter's second time doing it and just as good as the first time.

For more information please email charles@readnowwritenow.org.uk


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