One of the really great fun things to do as an author is events. You get to meet your readers and have lots of fun!  But I have to admit yesterday the nerves had got me. My last event of 2010 was a session that I really fretted over, StorySpark at The Ark in Dublin.

I think I was so nervous before because The Ark is such an iconic venue and I knew there was going to be a packed house. I couldn’t do my usual doodle along session with the kids so I had to come up with more theatre friendly ideas…

So I stuffed lots of props into my suitcase, beasts, chickens and the like.  I brought along dummy books, roughs, early sketches and original illustrations for everyone to have a look at too.

The Ravenous Beast puppet went down a storm!!!!

I cracked the drawing problem by getting the kids to join me on stage for a Hugglewug doodle-along, and ended the session by playing the doodle shape game with Tom from CBI, who drew an awesome shark.

Once I was onstage my nerves and worries disappeared, the audience were AWESOME! As you can probably tell from the photos I had great fun and the session totally zoomed by…

And The Ravenous Beast ate a book or two.

Thanks to CBI for coming up with Story Spark, it had a HUGE line up! Huge kudos to The Ark, what a marvellous venue and set. The Ark really storm a path for children’s creativity in Ireland. Nice write up on Natasha’s Blog about the event.

To book an event, look at more monsters and beasts, or a snoop around visit www.niamhsharkey.com

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