Powerhouse Young Writers’ Challenge

Primary school students from across NSW were invited to craft the wildest story they can imagine, inspired by objects from the Powerhouse Collection (opens in new tab), as selected by Andy Griffiths for the exhibition, Powerhouse Materials: Paper. The Powerhouse Young Writers’ Challenge fed students’ imaginations, fostered a love of writing and encouraged writers to be playful with words.

806 students and 30 teachers from 17 NSW public schools across greater Western Sydney participated in the program, which included writing workshops for students at Powerhouse Castle Hill, teacher professional learning, in-school resources and summer holiday writing workshops. The program culminated in a celebration with Andy Griffiths and Bill Hope at Powerhouse Castle Hill.

647 young writers and their families attended the Powerhouse Young Writers’ Challenge celebration where 5 stories were selected to be read by Andy Griffiths and live drawn by Bill Hope.

The selected stories were written by: Ashima, Charlotte, Hunter, Isaac and Thea.

When I was growing up I kept a shoebox underneath my bed in which I stored precious objects, such as old clock springs, rocks, foreign coins, super balls, marbles, dice, novelty erasers and the little toys out of cereal packets. These objects may not have had any monetary value or been especially interesting to anyone else, but they were interesting and valuable to me.

My collection eventually grew to two shoeboxes and then to a series of large stewing jars, which I kept on my bookshelves so I could enjoy looking at my treasured acquisitions. (My bookshelves were also rapidly filling up with weird and wonderful books that I picked up at secondhand bookshops and school fetes.)

Without really being aware of what I was doing, beyond amusing myself, I was amassing a collection of objects and books that fired up my imagination and would provide an important source of inspiration for the many books I would write in the future. (Books themselves, of course, being containers for collections of images, words and ideas arranged by the writer.)

So you can imagine how happy I was to be invited to curate a selection of interesting objects for the Powerhouse Materials: Paper Exhibition from the vast Powerhouse Collection.

At first the choice of objects was overwhelming but I relied on the instinct of my 10-year-old shoebox-curator to tell which objects were worth displaying.

Ventriloquist dolls, circus and movie posters, puppet theatres, boardgames, vintage ‘joke’ toilet paper and papier-mâché eyeballs, feet and heads all made the grade.

I was delighted, also, that part of the exhibition involved a concurrent writing challenge for students to come up with a piece of writing inspired by one of the objects. And, wow, did they accept the challenge with enthusiasm! More than 300 entries were received, from which the illustrator Bill Hope and I had the daunting job of selecting 5 pieces to present at a final exhibition event. There were over 640 young writers and their families at the event, including the author–illustrators of the chosen pieces.

Writing competitions are always fraught because stories can be very different from one another and almost impossible to compare. Bill and I were looking for original, short, lively pieces that would capture the attention and hold the interest of a large crowd. They also needed to be suitable for Bill to create live drawings as I read them out.

We started with Hunter’s piece, ’My Bizarre Adventure’, inspired by the antique papier-mâché foot (opens in new tab). In his story Hunter told of a bizarre adventure involving hitching a ride on a giant flying foot in an effort to submit his story to the writers challenge on time. I especially liked his arresting opening sentence: ‘I had the most crazy unbelievable experience of my life. And when I say unbelievable, I mean some of you might think that I made it up.’ That’s a first sentence that makes it almost impossible for the reader not to continue reading!

Isaac was up next, also inspired by the foot, with a poem called ‘Deadly Feet’ in which — amongst a lively torrent of complaints about feet — he advises the reader to cut off their feet to protect themself and everyone around from their deadly stench. I’m pretty sure he was joking, and hope everybody listening understood that too. But that’s a large part of the fun of creative writing for me: you can entertain the most outlandish and outrageous ideas safely in a make-believe world.

Charlotte chose the disembodied head (opens in new tab) from the exhibition to create a comic strip telling the story of the tyrant King Louis XVI and how he lost his head. An inventive, simple and shocking morality tale in 24 panels. I admired both the efficiency with which Charlotte told the tale and was intrigued by her drawing of faceless stick figures. When I asked her why they were faceless, Charlotte explained it was because she’s not very good at drawing faces, which is a brilliantly creative solution to the problem of not being able to draw faces. You don’t have to be good at everything to have fun creating stories and pictures. Happily, Bill could supply appropriate expressions for each head as the cartoon was presented, much to the audience’s delight.

Thea was inspired by the joke toilet paper (opens in new tab) to create a futuristic alternative to toilet-paper: a bum-bot which uses tiny lasers and comes equipped with wet wipes, animatronic UV-light and rollerskates. The audience also added their suggestions as Bill built on Thea’s design to create a brand-new prototype … which, while impressive and highly entertaining, I hope NEVER goes into actual production. Bum-bot indeed … Ugh!

Ashima’s piece told a very exciting science fiction story: ‘The rocket went to space. It went to Jupiter and Saturn and Mercury. Then it went deeper into space. But aliens came and took the rocket and used it. Aliens shooting asteroids! Octopus came. The Aliens and the Octopus aliens destroyed all the planets and moons.’ This piece inspired me, Bill, and the whole audience to make up our own exciting (well, okay, pretty silly) space adventure, which I think ended with us all running out of fuel and landing on a planet made of petrol to refuel, during which we made the fatal error of lighting the candles on our birthday cake. Doh!

Big congratulations to all the young writers whose pieces were chosen for presentation on the day, and to all the other writers who were inspired to write so many thoughtful, creative, lively and original stories. May you all continue to write creatively, read widely and actively collect whatever objects and/or observations feed and inspire your imaginations!

Andy Griffiths is one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. His Treehouse series has sold more than 10 million copies, won 80 Children’s Choice awards and 10 Australian Book Industry Awards, including Book of the Year for The 52-Storey Treehouse in 2015.

The Treehouse series is published in more than 35 countries. Five of the books in the series have been adapted for the stage and have all had sell-out seasons at the Sydney Opera House, as well as highly successful seasons in the Netherlands, New Zealand and America.