Primary school children from across the borough took part in an action-packed literary day to launch the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.

William Patten School, in Stoke Newington Church Street, hosted four successful writers on June 4 who discussed their work and their creative processes with the children, to inspire a love of reading and writing.

Pupils from Stoke Newington schools: Grasmere; Holmleigh; Thomas Abney; St Mary’s and Jubilee all benefited from the event.

William Patten’s assistant headteacher Craig Porteous, said: “This was a wonderful way to launch the StokeyLitfest and to nurture the children’s love of books, as well as a love and appreciation of reading and writing.

“We feel very lucky to be at the epicentre of such an important event and are very pleased to have been able to involve children from a number of schools within the borough to benefit from the seeing different authors bringing their work to life.

“The authors themselves are fantastic role models to the children and we hope that this event will inspire the next generation of Hackney based authors.”

Nyah, Year 1, said: “I’m going to write more books and I even wrote one yesterday.”

Emil, also in Year 1, said: “It made me want to read more books.”

Authors and storytellers involved were: Ciaran Murtagh, who has written for Dick and Dom and Mr Bean, Julia Deering, a professional storyteller at the British Museum, Sarwat Chadda author of the Ash Mistry books and Cornershop’s Tijinder Singh.

Marina, a Year 5 pupil said: “When Sarwat Chadda came in, I found it really inspiring. It gave me a great insight on how to write a story and I’m sure I will visit the festival later.”