From February 2010, I will be offering workshops suitable for Key Stage 2 & 3 on the theme of the Vikings.

The workshops will cover some or all of the following aspects of Viking life:

• Clothing - I will work in authentic replica Viking dress and bring costumes for two to three students.
• Games - Viking toys and games.
• Viking money and jewellery
• Fortune telling and healing
• Folklore & Nordic gods.
• Maps of the Viking expansion
• Weapons and warfare
• Daily life

The workshops typically last one hour.

A further hour comprising a creative writing workshop can be added to the above. In this hour the students would be encouraged to imagine the life of various Viking characters and to write a short piece from the point of view of one of them.

I have a background as a teacher, lecturer, translator and home-educator and am now writing full time.

My first book Between Two Seas was published by Oxford University Press in 2008 and was subsequently shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize, the Branford Boase Award, the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award (children's book category) and the Hampshire Book Award.

My second novel, The Lady in the Tower, a Tudor tale, was published in 2009 and was also shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize.

My first Viking was published in 2010 and is called Daughter of Fire and Ice. I spent two months in Iceland researching it and have also visited York and in connection with my second Viking tale, due out in 2011.

Fees on application.

Other types of event (including Tudors) available. Please ask.

Contact me