I can honestly say that this has been such a fantastic experience! I have been Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Young Poet Laureate for a year now and now it is time for me to hand over to my successor, whom I have met and I really like so that I am pleased about! I feel I have achieved quite a lot during a year – although it’s gone extremely fast – too fast. I’ve written a poem to advertise the young teen fiction award, which was possible my favourite poem that I have written for the post. I have also written one advertising a competition as part of the Lichfield festival, one for world book day which I slightly changed for world book night, one for part of Stoke’s Chelsea flower show entry, and also a poem to go with the summer reading challenge. For the last one I had an interview with the reading agency and an article online, which was lovely as the person who sorted it all out did an amazing job! I’ve also set up a YouTube channel, which is pretty impressive for me as I usually break anything technological rather than get it to work – so I was very surprised when I successfully posted not one, but two videos online – with more to come in the future! I’ve started this blog, and I’m trying to write on it more frequently and about a wider variety of things. I also took part in poetry by heart, which, although the style of competition is not really my thing (but I did it anyway) I did enjoy the experience because the other contestants were so lovely and I had a fantastic evening with them. I am so grateful to have had this incredible opportunity and can’t thank my mentor enough, who is last year’s poet laureate for the county, because he has been great, helping me go through poems and ideas and improving my writing. I have learnt a huge amount this year, not only have I learned how to be more organised (!), I’ve loved working with a variety of people and meeting people who share my love of poetry – that was an amazing feeling, having someone to share that passion with! I cannot thank staffordshire county council enough for giving me this opportunity and the people who have supported me, especially my parents (doing all the driving!) because without them I would not have had the year I have had – it has honestly been the best experience of my life!