May the Librarians Be With You: Top Tips for a Perfect School Visit

 Happy World Book Day er Week! Here's something I posted on my Facebook Page on 25 February 2017.

With World Book Day at hand, schools are gearing up for author visits and I’d love to share some Best Practice demonstrated by the scintillating librarians who had me visiting their schools this week. With many thanks to my kind hosts at the Queen Elizabeth School for Girls in North London and Linton Village College in Cambridgeshire.

So here are four tips I can offer based on these two shining school visits:

The People Power Revolution of 1986

By Candy Gourlay

Posted this note on my Facebook author page today



This photo crops up on my timeline on the anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines. It was my only photo during those heady times and you can only just see me behind the crowd of photojournalists and soldiers.

So many people now smirk at that uprising, I am sorry to report. Some say, it didn't achieve anything except unseat the dictator Ferdinand Marcos who had been leaching Philippine coffers for more than 20 years. Some now even say life was better under Marcos’ dictatorship. In fact, the villains of that era are now enjoying a strange ascendance and popularity buoyed by my native land’s personality-led politics and powerplay.