Written by Mrs Judy O’Connell

On Wednesday evening the College welcomed Richard Newsome, author of the “Billionaire’s Curse” Series, to make some awards, and also inspire boys  with his enthusiasm for writing.  In the audience were boys from the “Write-a-Book-in-a-Day Competition”, plus boys from Year 7.

After a successful visit to the College last year, Richard was approached and willingly  volunteered to be the Judge of the Joey’s entries in this national competition –  launching our own annual “Write-a-Book-in-a-Day competition”.   

We are very honoured to have had his support – particularly since Richard provided detailed feedback on the writing of each book!!

Richard had the Year 7 boys sitting on the edge of their seats, as he told the story of how he had his first book published – finally!!  The tale of intrigue included many rejection slips, an eventual entry into an Australian competition, calls from his mother-in-law that really were interrupting his wait for THAT magical phone call to say his book was to be published. 

FINALLY – the phone call came, and at that point all of Year 7 spontaneously burst into applause (even though the ending was clearly obvious!).   Boys asked great questions, and happily lined up to buy signed copies of Richard’s two books: Billionaire’s Curse and Emerald Casket.

Even better was to see the spiral-bound exercise book, with the pencil draft of Book Three – that never leaves his side.  Boys had a real chance to see the first draft of a book that will be published next year! 

Pictured in Photo 1:  Rob Webb (Lindfield), Tom Quirk (Year 8), Oliver Sumsky (Alexandria) and Nick Kovacs (West Pymble).

Pictured in Photo 2:  Mitch Frater-Baird (Killara), Tom Flitcroft (Epping) and Dylan Russell (Glebe).