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

15 November 2025

Posted by Lorna Digweed

Scripts

Today was my first time supporting the Mayflower Junior and Young Writers sessions

and I was excited to find out what would happen in each of the sessions…


The first bit of excitement was the venue being changed from the MAST studios to

the Mayflower Theatre, so I started the morning by having a little run down the hill

just in time to meet Ali and get settled in the very impressive executive suite with

comfy sofas which turned out to be very popular!


Our first activity was “time trial stories” and everyone got into pairs and immediately

got stuck into writing, the room was completely silent until the timers went off every

few minutes and the writers frantically swapped papers and added to each other’s

stories, even having to pick up the story in mid-sentence! The finished stories were

random and hilarious and included cannibals, bikes without brakes, cats and witches

and several portals to other dimensions.


I then had the delight of hearing about the scripts for plays that the groups have

been working on and the work will be brought to life in a performance in a few weeks’

time. I was so impressed by the imaginative range of tales that have been created,

from aliens in the woods, to plane crashes and not forgetting the psychopath next

door!

Both groups finished by creating straplines for their plays and I got to judge the best

ones which was a very special (and difficult) honour. I was also blown away by the

artwork that was created for the posters to promote each of the plays – what a

talented bunch!


In the Junior session, Writer of the Week went to both Eviflyli and Phoebe, and in the

Young Writer sessions it was decided that as everyone had been so fabulous Ali

couldn’t possibly choose one person!


I loved assisting at both sessions, thank you to everyone for making me feel so

welcome and I hope I might be able to make another guest appearance in the future!

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