Year 7-10 students were treated with a quite nice surprise on Tuesday, where a NZ famous author, Gareth Ward, AKA ‘The Great Wardini’, visited the students. He showed us a very exciting presentation of his life, past, and how he wrote his books. It took him one long while to get him to where he is today.
Gareth originally comes from Oxford, England, and moved to New Zealand when he was 20 years old. He used to be an English Marine as well as a Police Officer for 7 years before moving here. When he came to New Zealand, he learned magic tricks, eventually turning into a magician performing from children’s birthday parties to bookstores, schools, and even a cornfield.
Gareth started writing when he joined a book-writing competition, and he won it! His first award-winning book, entitled “The Traitor and The Thief”, was his first book ever published. Based in Oxford with a boy named ‘Sin’, who is on a mission. The book sold like wildfire, eventually winning an NZ book award. He wrote a sequel, entitled “The Clockill and the Thief”, which was also a best seller.
Only recently, he wrote a new series of books, starting with “Brasswitch and BOT”, another Steampunk book series. He says that he bases all his books in Europe and New Zealand, with a sequel to this bestselling book coming to book stores soon!
We would like to thank Gareth Ward for giving us his time to speak to us about his very interesting life, facts, books, and even showing us some of his magic tricks! The students really enjoyed it, and we are looking forward to more visits from him!
