Author Visit Maisie Chan
The Read to Succeed Initiative has been running since 2018. It was set up by the NLC Learning Hub and NLC School Librarians and funded by Scottish Attainment monies. They have organised author visits for first years, and for the past 3 years a book gifting project whereby every first-year pupil selects a free book. This year’s cohort have already successfully selected and received their free book.
This year was our first author visit since 2019, and we had author Maisie Chan come to the school on Tuesday 22/3/22 to talk to S1 pupils in the hall at period 6.
Maisie first discussed her writing journey so far. She has written books for younger children and reluctant readers, a short story in a detective anthology and some books aimed at children aged 9-12 and is a newbie screenwriter with a short film aimed at adults, called “Folding”.
She then told us about herself. She is British-Chinese, and is a working-class transracial adoptee, from Birmingham. There was not much money but lots of love. There were few books in the house, but her mum used to regularly take her to the local library, and she was a keen reader. She now lives in Glasgow, having moved here 5 years ago.
Her most recent book is “Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths” and she described how she had been inspired to write this book and how she developed the characters. This book was shortlisted in the Blue Peter Book Awards for 2022. She gave a short summary of the book and then read chapter one.
Her next book is out in June 2022, and is called “Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu” and is set in Glasgow and involves a granddaughter’s road trip to Blackpool with her grandfather, their love of “Strictly Dancing”. Lizzie is a young carer who is also interested in Cosplay. Maisie likes to write stories, about intergenerational and diverse characters, using humour to write about important issues.
Maisie then started taking questions from the audience. Dalziel S1's kept her busy, travelling from one end of the hall to answer the many questions asked.
It was a very successful and enjoyable event!
To find out more about Maisie and her books, please visit: https://www.maisiechan.com
C.Allan, Librarian at Dalziel High School