Upon arrival students were greeted and taken on a tour of Emerald’s beautifully designed head offices. They got to see departments such as marketing, design, finance, human resources, copywriting, editing, and facilities.

Author, Daniel Ingram-Brown gave an inspiring talk about the life of a writer whilst informing them of his creative process that went into his books; The Nemesis Charm, Rise of the Shadow Stealers and The Firebird Chronicles. This was preceded with an inspiring Q&A session.

OIAMFS students asked riveting questions of Daniel, which included: Where do you get your inspiration to write the books? Have you ever experienced writers block and how did you overcome it? How do you know and target what audience to write for? Where is your go-to-place that helps you to creatively write? What keeps you going in life when you’re struggling to complete a book? During the journey, when do you decide what the title of your book should be?

However, the winning question, chosen by Daniel Ingram-Brown was asked by student Jonathan Bentley, who asked, “Our values are compassion, honesty, integrity and excellence, what values do you write from and how do you hope to inspire your readers with them?”. Before answering, Daniel paused and replied, “Wow, I have never been asked a question like that before!!”.

Next, it was the turn of the students to show their flair as they participated in a Creative Writing breakout session. They were given an envelop with a series of pictures to inspire, spark questions and cause reflection, all to be captured as part of their story written in their beautiful journals donated by Emerald! Students have until the end of this week to complete their stories, which will be entered into a competition run by Emerald.

Student Meliazah McMahon said, “Visiting Emerald Publishing was such an amazing experience and offered an interesting insight into the world of writing and publishing. I particularly loved hearing from author Daniel Ingram Brown who spoke about his experiences as an author and his series of books including, ‘The Firebird Chronicles’. He was open and honest about any questions we had for him. I really welcomed the feedback he gave me on the short 500 word story I had written during the creative writing workshop. Overall, my peers and I really enjoyed the visit, and we will definitely be submitting our stories to their creative writing contest”.

Melissa Fojt (Social Responsibility Manager) said, “The employee’s of Emerald Publishing thoroughly enjoyed todays event! The students were extremely polite and their behaviour for learning was on point. We all loved the stories that were shared at the end of the creative writing workshop. We now look forward to rewarding the winning author with their prize, which will be selected by Keith Howard, Founder of Emerald Group”.

Shariq Mumtaz (Managing Director – Global Sales, Emerald Publishing) added, “We all thoroughly enjoyed having you here and the engagement from your students was great to see too!”.

Wayne Jacobs, (CEO, Co-founder) said, “We are One In A Million very proud to be associated with Emerald Publishing and only want to further enhance our exciting relationship in the future. THANK YOU for championing and believing in our young people”.