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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

13 September 2025

Posted by Susan L. Edser

Play Creators

Ali Sparkes is a children’s author who leads writing sessions for Junior and Young Writers every Saturday morning at MAST Mayflower Studios. To learn more about her, visit her website: https://www.alisparkes.com and click on her profile: https://artfulscribe.co.uk/facilitators/ali-sparkes

Susan L. Edser, MA graduate in Creative Writing and Publishing and winner of Bournemouth University’s prestigious Vice Chancellor Award 2024, is Ali’s assistant and writes the weekly blog. To learn more about her, click on her profile: https://artfulscribe.co.uk/facilitators/susan-l-edser


Welcome to the new academic year 2025/6 and our first session back for ArtfulScribe’s Junior and Young Writers groups at MAST studio theatre. We were delighted to have many returners, as well as five newbies. Ali began the session in the best way possible, with a warm welcome, followed by Fill-in Fun to get the creative juices flowing. 

Silva, Mayflower’s Education Programme Co-ordinator, joined us to explain Play Creators, an exciting new initiative that all the writers will take part in this term. This is an opportunity to learn about playwriting and for the writers to have their play performed by students from Solent University. The project’s aim is to teach and inspire young writers about theatre. They do this by providing acting workshops, backstage tours, and teaching children the craft: how to create characters, write dialogue and produce gripping plots. The Junior and Young Writer groups will work on two scripts each, complete them by half term and see them performed by actors in MAST studio theatre on 29th November. 

Silva brought a box filled with props from previous plays and shared them with the groups. There was a pocket watch, two small metal vases, a magnifying glass, a scroll, a money pouch, a tattered, leather-bound book, and a silver bracelet. The objects were prompts for the writers to begin their stories, and Ali gave suggestions:

‘It was when I found the [insert object] that it all started.’

Describe what you have found.

Have an argument with someone about it.

Have you stolen it?

Did it fall out of the sky?

One person wrote about an old-fashioned watch spinning the protagonist back in time, and another found a book that instructed them to go to a graveyard.

Star Writer of the Week was George in the Junior Writers, for his excellent start to a script set in Egypt. It was Isla who won Star Writer of the Week for the Young Writers for her entertaining take on an old, unsolved crime. Well done to both of them, and we are all looking forward to seeing which stories are chosen and how they will unfold over the coming weeks.

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