Learning from Nick Hornby

A few nights ago I attended a special event at the TIFF Bell Lightbox: In Conversation with… Nick Hornby.

I had never attended an author’s event before and thoroughly enjoyed it! The whole evening made me think about applications to education:
– ask good questions
– provide examples using a variety of media
– provide insight into the process and look at things from multiple perspectives
– include anecdotes to help learners remember the information and provide them with tips

I wish I had caught the host’s name – she did a fantastic job of asking questions that I was eager to hear the answers to and seemed to genuinely want to know the answers herself. She was obviously well-prepared and was working form a list of questions but also seemed to pick just the right one at the opportune time.

Because the event was hosted by TIFF and so many of Nick Hornby’s books have been turned into films, it was the perfect venue to punctuate the talk with movie clips.

Mr.Hornby shared some interesting insights. For example, he talked abut how it’s not very rewarding to turn your own novel into a screenplay since you had spent years crafting it to be just right and then need to pare everything down to just 100 pages! He also spoke about how when he adapts someone else’s work into a screenplay it allows him to get into someone else’s head and view things from their perspective.

At the end, he made a reference to how important it is for writers to be readers. In response to an audience member’s question, he clarified that if you just write for yourself then this probably isn’t as important. However, if you hope to be published, he spoke of how important it is to know what is already out there.

i guess the whole evening was so engaging in part because it was just good teaching!