This is the view from the third floor office where I work at the University of South Wales, Treforest Campus. It’s been impossible to take a photograph until today, when it’s finally stopped raining. I’m enjoying my time on the campus. It’s great working with enthusiastic students and I’m finally able to make use of the library for my PhD research after relying on remote access as a distance learning student.
Most weeks I leave home for work at 6am, arriving around 3 hours later and begin teaching at 11am on Monday. I stay in Pontypridd most weeks from Monday until Thursday, when I deliver a session with third year students. This talented group are working towards a major project for submission later in the year. I’ve also been busy marking assignments which critically compare examples of historical and contemporary children’s literature.
With second year students, I’m delivering a module titled Writing for Children and have covered sessions on dialogue in children’s literature, planning a children’s novel and writing for young adults. Further sessions will consider anthropomorphism and writing children’s poetry. I’m learning such a lot at the minute, I hope I will be able to recycle some of the material to support workshops in the community for adults who are interested in developing stories for children.
Watch this space for details!
the writer is a lonely hunter 
Gail this does sound exciting – but hard work! I always thought that I learned more through teaching than I did by any other method and it sounds as if this is your experience as well. I’ve never tried to write for children, perhaps I’ll try now.
It’s worth a go. I think experience of different genres is worth pursuing to develop well rounded skills and talents as a writer.