Ian Billings is an author with a difference - he has a rare talent to entertain too. At the recent awards ceremony for the Warwickshire Secondary Book Award Ian not only expertly chaired discussion with two authors - Sophie Mckenzie and Emma Clayton - but had an auditorium full of Year 7 pupils in stitches, only pausing to catch his next gem in a stream of hilarious and fresh stand-up gags.

Catherine was great and we really enjoyed her visit.

We would like to thank Anne E. Stewart for her wonderful storytelling incursion this morning. Our grade 2 students were absolutely enthralled by her stories, especially the string stories. Following her session, we had a fantastic discussion back in the classroom about different ways of telling stories, and I know my students are going to take many of her ideas as a springboard for their own learning.

Thanks for a truly fabulous CCLC in 2012. We were so thrilled with the response to your sessions and so grateful for all the energy and passion you devoted to each of the workshops you conducted.

A visit from Annie meets all expectations... She engages well with the students and goes to a lot of trouble to bring in items for the students to focus on as she speaks about her work. She is always friendly and interacts well with our staff. We have invited Annie out three times now and each time she has been just as generous with both the sharing about her work and with donating her books (to those in our school who would benefit from a gift of her books). Thanks for your help in organising [...]

It was a wonderful visit last week and an experience that did support many of the messages we deliver to students regarding writing, creativity and engaging in literacy. I was particularly thrilled with the messages Kirsty gave regarding the process and long journey attached to being a writer.

Speakers Ink is an agency that handles my requests and questions promptly and efficiently. I like that they don't bombard me but give me enough assistance to make our author visits successful. I always feel comfortable in my dealings with Speakers Ink.

Andrea was a great speaker. She engaged her audiences, across multiple ages in each session. She was approachable, articulate and her content was appropriate for each group. On the lead up to the event, Andrea made contact and went out of her way to tailor her speeches to suit our themes and ethos. She was considerate and thoughtful. I would not hesitate to recommend her as a speaker.

Simon Higgins was just brilliant. The staff and students were very impressed with his outlook and what he had to say. His workshop was well presented and had the students working. Thank you so much for recommending Simon. You were right; he was perfect for our needs in workshopping creative writing techniques for our Yr 8 students.

Jenny Wang helped us kick off a week long celebration of learning as part of Catholic Week activities at Jubilee Primary. With Jenny's expertise, all students successfully created their own manga characters, inspiring some students to submit art work for the school's mini Art Show. Jenny's own passion for using animation to spread positive community messages could be a great starter for students building their own community message.

Shannon visited my year 8 focused literacy class. Her presentation was very well organised, relevant and extremely interesting. Shannon discussed the steps she went through to write and publish her book "Was Not Me". This was closely linked to the theory behind story structures. Students had an opportunity to see early drafting notes and discuss the drafting, illustrating and publishing processes. All of this was presented in a manner that suited my class perfectly and there were lots of o [...]