Living Writers : Novelists

This book is intended mainly for fourth and fifth year students in secondary schools and their teachers.

The main purpose of the series is to develop students' understanding of the process of writing and to improve their own skills in all aspects of English.

It does this firstly by providing first-hand accounts by prominent writers on how, why and what they write.

Secondly, by giving students a taste of the authors' writing and thirdly by a variety of reading, writing, and discussiona activities. In this book, Jan Mark, John Gordon, Adele Geras and Aiden Chambers provide us with insights into the processes of their writing.

Students are led on, through understanding and empathy with these novelists in particular, to think about and develop an understanding of novel writing in general, resulting in their own improved reading and writing.

The assignments emphasis the links between reading, writing and speaking through small group discussion and individual and cooperative writing. They aim to help the student to share as nearly as possible the experience of each writer.

Illustrations are intended to encourage empathy with the novelists and their work and stimulate discussion. The four writers and their work are shown in context, both in terms of what they say in the interviews about what has influenced them, and in terms of their place in the wider context of literature.