The Tale of Two Sophies

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Putney High School welcomes back alumnae to inspire the next generation

Author, 'Sophie Kinsella' and BBC Broadcaster, Sophie Raworth
returned this week to their old school to inspire the next generation at Putney High School.

Sophie Kinsella, (her real name is Madeleine Wickham), talked about the challenges of starting out as an author, the processes involved in writing a novel, and how she makes her characters come to life. Most importantly she talked about the “graft” that’s necessary to achieve what you want in life and how: “Being creative isn't just inventing stories or making art - it's so much of what people do in life. It's thinking of a really cleverly worded clause in a contract, or a solution to a logistics problem, or it's being an entrepreneur and suddenly seeing a gap in the market. It's something that we all do, and can do and should do.”

BBC broadcaster Sophie Raworth, recalled how it was at Putney that her interest in working in the media was really ignite:“I kept out of the way of the ‘cool’ girls – the ones who seemed to exude huge amounts of the confidence, one day, one of them said to me ‘I’ve never heard you speak’ … all these years later, you literally have to switch me off!”

These visits to Putney are part of a series of guest appearances organised as part of the school’s PIE+ lecture series - inspiring and engaging young minds, and forms part of the aptly named, Putney Ideas Exchange (PIE). The initiative invites inspirational speakers from an astonishing range of fields to inspire, amaze and to share their wisdom with pupils. Other notable speakers have included: philosopher A. C. Grayling and neuroscientist Henry Marsh. As Putney High School is part of the Girls’ Day School Trust, PIE+ runs hand-in-hand with the GDST’s “Be Inspired” series, which focuses on career support and inspiration and encourages both personal and professional development.

November 17, 2017