Taking Pupils to a Literature Festival with Georgina Saunders and James Emery

We're back on the road, and have finally got some pupils on the podcast! For this episode, recorded back in July (hence the frequent references to the summer holidays, now a distant memory), we popped down the road to Eastern High School in Cardiff, taking over a room in their shiny new building to interview four special guests.

Georgina Saunders was mentioned in one of the regular slots back in season 1, and now gets the chance to appear in person to tell us about how she pulled off the impressive feat of being the student teacher who took forty pupils to the Hay Festival to develop their love for all things to do with reading. She's joined by Eastern High's librarian, James Emery, who was a vital part of the team who brought it all together. They've got plenty of tips for anyone who can see the value for pupils of putting on something like this, but can't imagine how they'd survive the experience! For good measure, we've got two wonderful pupil guests who went on the trip, who tell us about everything from LGBTQIA+ literature to gothic fiction, the joys of tidying the library and the lovely smell of new books.

If you want to find out more about the Hay Festival, their website is at www.hayfestival.com. Huge thanks to Eastern High School (EasternHigh.org.uk) for hosting us for the recording of this episode and making our four guests available.

The books recommended in this episode were The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, Circe by Madeline Miller and How to Teach English Literature: Overcoming Cultural Poverty by Jennifer Webb.

Please do let us know what you think with a rating or review in your favoured podcast app (why not subscribe while you're at it?) - or find us on Twitter @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze. You can also find Georgina at @Saunders__G

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This episode was recorded at Eastern High School, Cardiff on 16th July 2019