Write for a bright future

Giant inflatable sweets, story hopscotch and a word wrestling match? It could only be the ‘Write for Bright Future’ conference.

This month, we were very excited to play host to the first international gathering of organisations and projects inspired by the 826 centres in the United States.

We welcomed 150 story leaders from around the world – including Australia, France and Italy –  to come and debate, share and tell stories about their work.

Here our some of our highlights from the week:

One Story, Many Endings

We invited some of the young people who benefit from our writing workshops to interview writers and founders Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby and Roddy Doyle.

The children asked the hard hitting questions we all want to know such as ‘Have you ever seen anyone reading one of your books?’, ‘Which book are you most proud of?’ and ‘Do you draw your characters before writing your stories’.

Hoxton Story Tours

We also bought in the experts to host walking tours, exposing the hidden tales of Hoxton Street. Our Thursday after-school club (ages 8- 13) lead the delegates around the area, introducing guest to local shops, characters and community of monsters.

One Story, Many Endings Book Launch

Several weeks before the conference our Saturday club started a story, bringing it to a cliffhanger. They then invited children from other 826 inspired organisations around the world to carry on from the cliffhanger and finish the story.

Story endings flooded in and the result was One Story, Many Endings, a book written by over 200 children from 12 different countries.

The book launched on the last day of the conference with story hopscotch, inflatable sweets, readings and video messages from children in other countries.