Tag Archives: Author

Former pupil of Kemany Academy and Kelpies Prize winner Alex McCall visits the Writers’ Group

On Tuesday the 5th of March, Kemnay Academy Writers’ group had the privilege of a visit from Alex McCall, an ex-pupil of Kemnay Academy who is the newly published author of Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens.

Alex spoke to us about growing up and wishing to be an author for a very long time. He went into detail about the writing process, and how he went about writing his book, which won the 2013 Kelpies Prize. Now a film studies student at the University of West Scotland, Alex is the youngest winner in the history of the Kelpies Prize.

We were all delighted to have him visit us and the feedback was very positive. Iona Christie (S1) described the visit as “very funny, because of the jokes that he told”. Katie Cameron (S1) commented, “He gave us ideas on how to reach our goal of becoming an author.” Alex encouraged his audience to enter competitions and to persevere, even with work that was thought “terrible” by its author. Thiago Modena (S1) added, “It was an entertaining and educational experience, which taught us that we should never give up, even if the publishers rejected the book.”  The whole of Kemnay Academy’s Writers’ Group is very thankful to have been visited by a published author who, as a former pupil of our school, is very inspirational