Fans of Warriors wowed by author’s visit

Students at the Maynard School enjoyed a pre-Christmas treat when Victoria Holmes, creator and editor of the hugely popular Warriors series, hosted all day workshops and book signings in the library on Tuesday 1 December 2015.

The author had been invited to the school on the insistence of a number of girls who have been completely fascinated by the best-selling books depicting an exciting fantasy world of wild cats who live in clans in the forest.

Victoria talked about how the Warriors series came about and how she and her publishers thought up the name Erin Hunter, a collective name for the collaboration of authors involved in the series. She described what it was like to be an international best-selling author, touring the world to promote her books, then coming home to her beloved horses. The girls were fascinated by the idea of working in writing teams and some girls in particular were delighted that Victoria was involved in a favourite series from their younger days, the Rainbow Magic Fairies!

After reading from the first Warriors book, Victoria gave the girls a very interesting creative writing exercise in which they each invented a story about an unidentified animal, then read it aloud for the other girls to guess which animal it was. Stand-out stories were the turkey facing a grim Christmas, the sheep planning a daring escape in spite of the lurking fox, the hippo who wallowed in his river with such perfect authority and the fiery-eyed owl.

Quite apart from the girls being slightly awe-struck in the presence of their writing heroine, it appeared that the author herself enjoyed an incredible day, subsequently writing her thanks to the school:

“A thousand grateful purrs for inviting me to take part in your Warriors Day! What an honour! I have rarely been so feted, in all my years of travelling around the world to discuss my feral cats. I was overwhelmed by the warmth of your welcome, the enthusiasm for Warriors, and the zeal with which everyone took part in the creative writing exercise.

The standard of writing was impeccably high, and I loved discussing each piece with the students. It almost made me miss my days as an English teacher! (Almost, but not quite, because I am very, very blessed to lead the life that I do now.) I left feeling proud of my feral cats, impressed by the girls’ energy and creativity, and half-wistful that I am not a Maynardian myself.”

For Dulcie Fraser, a Warriors superfan and whose brainchild it was to invite the author in to the school, the visit was a dream come true: “It was incredible, it couldn’t have been better! All the activities were really fun and meeting Vicky was amazing!”