2008 is the National Year of Reading.  To celebrate this event, which only happens every 10 years, the BBC held a storywriting competition. 

We are very proud to say that our learners won two of the three North West Regional Finalists awards.  The picture shows Christine Doherty and Sylvia Kenyon at the glittering award ceremony held recently in London where they received their prizes from TV personality Vanessa Feltz.

2008 is the National Year of Reading. To celebrate this event - which only happens every 10 years - the BBC held a storywriting competition as part of their RaW campaign that is aimed at highlighting the importance of reading and writing for adults. Nearly 2,500 stories were submitted to the competition and were judged regionally. There were three North West Regional Finalists and we are very proud to say that two of them were Working Wonders' learners. 

This is what some of the judges said: "I was knocked out by the creativity of the writers.  Just think, all those wonderful ideas were locked inside people's heads, till writing relased them from captivity to give us so much delight!" - Julia Jarman - author

"To write for the first time is a really brave thing to do. All the entrants need to be commended. They all showed a wonderul use of imagination and effort."Christine McNaught - Coventry Libraries;

Working Wonders' winning learners were Sylvia Kenyon who wrote a wonderful, imaginative and entertaining children's story called "Why are you green?" and Christine Doherty who wrote "Lokankee's star turn." again, a wonderful story showing huge amounts of imagination and creativity.  From among the winning entries, Sylvia and Christine had the honour of their stories being chosen to be published in a BBC book called "Winning Short Stories"

Neither Sylvia or Christine had ever written a children's story before and lacked confidence in their writing ability.  Working Wonders' tutor Ann Hirst saw their potential and guided them to success.  Both Sylvia and Christine are delighed with their efforts and both want to continue to develop their newly-found talent!

The picture shows Christine Doherty and Sylvia Kenyon at the glittering award ceremony held recently in London where they received their prizes from TV personality Vanessa Feltz. The prizes included an all expenses paid weekend in a top London hotel, a tour of the capital and, of course, the exciting presentation ceremony.