Mark Smith, author of The Road to Winter, which is a book listed novel for Year 9, spoke to students on Tuesday March 21 in the Kildare Theatre.

Mark is a passionate and engaging speaker, and the students were enthralled with his stories of falling off a horse and breaking his neck as a teenager, his subsequent immersion in reading books as he was recovering as well as invaluable background information for the students with The Road to Winter. Mark spoke in depth about the creation of characters in the book and the process of writing the novel. Students asked a range of pertinent and enquiring questions towards the end of the session. A long line of appreciative students queued up at the end of the presentation to have Mark sign their copy of The Road to Winter.