Jennifer Killick guides you through creating all-important characters, from finding a starting point to developing them into fully formed people that we know inside out, using some of her characters as examples.

Jennifer Killick is the author of Dread Wood, Crater Lake, Crater Lake Evolution, and the Alex Sparrow series. Jennifer regularly visits schools and festivals, and her books have been selected four times for the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge. She lives in Uxbridge, in a house full of children, animals and books. When she isn’t busy mothering or step-mothering (which isn’t often) she loves to watch scary movies and run as fast as she can, so she is fully prepared for witches, demons, and the zombie apocalypse.

Plot is a verb, and whether you’re planning a first draft or about to rewrite an earlier one, this two-hour workshop will look at all the key steps you need to work through, from character arcs to subverting reader expectations, and writing the perfect ending.

Jonathan Eyers is a commissioning editor at Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the author of five books of non-fiction and fiction, plus a ghostwriter and contributor to others. He edits and mentors writers of all levels through the Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and WriteMentor.

With author Ben Oliver, dive deep into the process of visualising the world in which your story will take place. How much detail should go in? How much history should you know? How do you bring it all to life in a realistic way?

Ben Oliver began writing creatively at age seven, and was promptly placed into the lowest reading and writing group at school. Frustrated by his lack of immediate success, Ben chose to step-down from the world of writing.

Three years later, he came out of retirement to write a What I Did During My Summer Holiday assignment, where he claimed he saved the world from the apocalypse. Encouraged by an enthusiastic teacher, Ben returned, triumphantly, to writing.

A mere twenty-two years later, and now a high school English teacher, Ben’s first novel, The Loop, was published in 2020.

Editing is a crucial skill for writers to master but approaching your own manuscript can seem daunting. This workshop will break down the editing process and equip writers with the tools they need to make their writing sparkle. Ideal for writers at any stage of the writing process.

Simran Sandhu is an Editor at Macmillan Children’s Books focusing on Young Adult and Middle Grade Fiction and Poetry. During her 5 year career at MCB she’s worked on a wide range of genres but for YA her absolute favourites are fantasy and coming-of-age romance, and for MG she’s obsessed with laugh-out-loud commercial adventures.

Want to pen a picture book but don’t know where to start? Stuck for ideas and need that push to put pen to paper? Join author Amy Sparkes and write a picture book in 2 hours.

Amy Sparkes is a bestselling author for children of all ages. She has written over 20 books for children, including The House At The Edge of Magic series, the Pirate Blunderbeard series, and many picture books, including a series for BBC’s The Repair Shop.  Amy has been nicknamed The Story Godmother and is passionate about helping emerging writers.

Whether you’re writing middle-grade or Young Adult, contemporary or fantasy, voice is incredibly important in hooking agents, editors and ultimately readers. But what exactly is voice, why is it so important and how can you nurture yours? Using examples from Kesia’s editorial and writing lives, she will help explore her take on voice and guide you through a few key exercises. For the last half an hour, she will open up to Q&A.

Kesia Lupo is Senior Editor at Chicken House, the boutique children’s publisher founded and run by publishing legend Barry Cunningham, where she has worked since 2015. Now, she acquires and edits Young Adult and middle-grade fiction across an eclectic range of genres, as well heading up the Times/Chicken House Competition, the largest children’s fiction competition in the UK. Authors she works with include Costa-winning magical realist author Jasbinder Bilan and bestselling fantasy writer James Nicol on the middle-grade side, and speculative fiction writers Ben Oliver, Naomi Gibson and Molly Morris for Young Adult. Kesia is also the author of two YA fantasy novels published by Bloomsbury, We Are Blood and Thunder and We Are Bound by Stars. Find her on Twitter and TikTok: @keslupo and on Instagram @kesialupoauthor

Writing the first book can seem like an impossible milestone. But what about the next one, and the next one? Using her own work as an example, Vashti Hardy shares how authors can build long term, sustainable careers.

Vashti Hardy is a writer of children’s books spending her time between Lancashire and Sussex. She was a primary school teacher for several years, and has a special interest in children’s writing, especially free-writing and the use of journals and creating fantasy worlds. She has a first-class honours teaching degree with English specialism and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester. Now a successful children’s author, Vashti’s breathtaking middle grade fantasies are published across the world in several languages.  Wildspark won the Blue Peter Book Award ‘Best Story’ in 2020 and the FCBG Children’s Book Awards and Brightstorm was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, Books are My Bag Awards, among others.  Brightstorm was also selected for Independent Booksellers Book of the Season and both Brightstorm and WIldspark were selected as Primary School Book Club Reads.

Author and script editor Holly Race discusses the business of adapting books for the big and small screen.

Holly Race is the author of the Midnight’s Twins trilogy – a Young Adult urban fantasy set between our world and the world of dreams. She used to work in TV and film script development for companies like Red Planet Pictures, Aardman Animations and Working Title.

Follow a picture book from concept with Clare Helen Welsh, through various drafts pre-and post-agent. Find out what can happen in the run up to acquisitions and after, comparing initial drafts to published texts – a behind the scenes look at the process people don’t usually see. 

Clare Helen Welsh is a former primary school teacher and mental health champion, turned children’s writer. She is delighted that her books mean she can continue to inspire children to love language, themselves and the world around them. Clare’s picture book publishers include Little Tiger Press, Quarto, Pan Macmillan, Andersen Press and Nosy Crow. Clare also writes early readers for Ladybird, Schofield and Sims, Collins Big Cat and Maverick Books. When Clare isn’t fulfilling her dream of writing for children, she is helping aspiring writers do the same. Clare was WriteMentor Writer-in-Residence for Picture books in 2021 and is a WriteMentor course tutor and mentor.

Take part in a discussion on the inspiration behind Benjamin Dean’s children’s and Young Adult titles, the process of writing and getting published, and the author/agent relationship.

Benjamin Dean is the author of middle-grade novels Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow and The Secret Sunshine Project. He was recently shortlisted for both the Branford Boase Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. With his latest title, The King Is Dead, he crossed over into the YA market.

Chloe Seager joined the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency in 2019 from Northbank Talent where she spent four years building a children’s and YA list from scratch. As well as the wonderful Benjamin Dean, she represents Carnegie nominated author Emily Critchley, and the 2022 Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize winner Maisie Chan.

A frank chat about the benefits and the challenges of a daughter and mother writing children’s books together. Not just the process involved in two people (mostly in different places) writing one book in one voice but also the advantages of sharing the ups and downs of publishing.

Honor Cargill began writing when she was about sixteen, co-authoring the funny teen series, Waiting for Callback (Simon & Schuster). Honor read Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at Oxford and is now studying for a masters in the History of Art. She enjoys researching party scenes and also writes non-fiction history.

Perdita Cargill spent years working as a commercial barrister before she finally turned to writing. Bizarrely for a pessimistic Scot, she loves to write funny books. She is the co-author with Honor Cargill of the Waiting for Callback series (Simon & Schuster) and lives in London.

Author Catherine Emmett and illustrator David Tazzyman share the process of how a picture book goes from being a text document into being a fully illustrated book, using their picture book The Pet as an example.

Catherine Emmett grew up in Newcastle and spent all of her childhood reading books. Then she spent 14 years in London making spreadsheets and not reading any books at all. After advising a group of young girls to find a career that they loved, she decided to take her own advice. She packed up her husband and her three young boys, moved to rural Essex and started to write picture books. She now spends her days surrounded by words, animals and noisy boys.

David Tazzyman is an internationally acclaimed award-winning illustrator. Born & raised in Leicester, David wanted to be an artist since the age of 5. He graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University 1993 and then travelled around Asia with sketchbooks for 3 years before moving to London in 1997. He worked as a commercial illustrator (clients including Cream, Vodafone, Orange, Natwest, Fiat, Levi’s, Virgin Atlantic, We Love) before falling into children’s publishing in 2006, illustrating Andy Stanton’s Mr Gum series which went on to win numerous awards including the first Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2008. Now David mainly illustrates children’s picture and fiction books and lives in Leicestershire with his partner and 3 children. David likes drawing a lot. He also likes football, cricket, golf and biscuits. He still does not like celery (although he does concede it helps the flavour of a bolognaise sauce).

Piers Torday began his career in theatre and then television as a producer and writer. His first book for children, The Last Wild, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Award and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. His second book, The Dark Wild, won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. There May Be A Castle was a People’s Book Award finalist and a Times Children’s Book of the Year. The Lost Magician was a Book of the Year in six national newspapers and won the Teach Primary Book Award. The follow up, The Frozen Sea, was published in 2019 and was an iPaper Children’s Book of the Year. A prequel to The Last Wild Trilogy, The Wild Before, published in August 2021. Piers has also completed an unfinished novel by his late father Paul (author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Death of an Owl) and adapted The Box of Delights and A Christmas Carol for the stage.

Hannah Gold grew up in a family where books, animals, and the beauty of the outside world were ever present, and is now passionate about writing stories that share her love of the planet. The Last Bear, her middle grade debut, became an instant classic and international bestseller upon release in 2021. It won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Awards and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards, the Indie Book Awards and was also nominated for the Carnegie Medal.The Lost Whale is Hannah’s second middle-grade novel which tells an incredible story about the connection between a boy and a whale and the bond that sets them both free. Both novels are illustrated by renowned artist Levi Pinfold and published by HarperCollins Children’s Books. She lives in the UK with her tortoise, her cat and her husband. 

Nicola Penfold was born in Billinge and grew up in Doncaster. She studied English Literature at Cambridge University. Nicola has worked in a reference library and for a health charity, but being a writer was always the job she wanted most. Nicola writes ecological adventure stories for Little Tiger for 9+. Her debut novel Where the World Turns Wild was chosen as a Future Classic for the BookTrust School Library Pack and shortlisted for several regional awards. Nicola writes in the coffee shops and green spaces of North London, where she lives with her husband, children and cats, and escapes when she can to wilder corners of the UK for adventures.  

[Chair] Alexandra Sheppard is a children’s author from London, UK. Her debut YA novel ‘Oh My Gods’ was published by Scholastic and featured in Buzzfeed, Refinery29 and The Guardian’s Summer Reading List. It was also shortlisted for the Bristol Teen Book Award 2019. Her short story was featured in the 2021 Knights Of anthology ‘Happy Here’ and her debut middle-grade novel is coming soon. 

Clare Wallace joined the Darley Anderson Agency in January 2011 and is building both the Darley Anderson Children’s Agency and the Darley Anderson Illustration Agency lists. As chief talent-spotter, Clare loves to discover memorable new characters, bold and unique voices, strong concepts and gripping storytelling. She represents picture books, middle-grade, teenage and YA. Clare is particularly looking for funny chapter books for younger readers at the moment as well as YA rom coms, especially with underrepresented protagonists. Whatever the age range, Clare loves a big hook, a lot of heart, and a standout voice.  The clients Clare represents include Perdita & Honor Cargill, Caroline Crowe, Tom Ellen, Martyn Ford, Stewart Foster, A M Howell, Polly Ho-Yen, Rachel Ip, Beth Reekles, J.P. Rose, Lindsay Galvin, Dave Rudden, Deirdre Sullivan and Efua Traoré.

Lucy Irvine is an Agent, working primarily on PFD’s children’s list. After graduating from University College London with an MA in Issues in Modern Culture in 2017, she interned at Agora Books, PFD’s publishing arm, before becoming assistant to CEO Caroline Michel. She began building her own list in 2019 and was promoted to Agent in June 2021. She is looking for commercial Middle Grade and YA and is drawn to narratives driven by world building; quick-paced, addictive, and adventurous, with returnable series potential. 

Megan Carroll graduated from Goldsmiths with a BA in English and American Literature in 2013 and worked as an intern at Watson, Little and Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency before returning to the agency as the assistant in July 2014. She is now a Literary Agent and is building her own list.

Aisha Bushby was born in Bahrain and have lived in Kuwait, England and Canada. The first novel she ever worked on was a piece of fan fiction, based on her favourite book series, which she stayed up all night to work on when she was thirteen. She now writes children’s books, sometimes with a little bit of magic in them. 

Jenny Pearson is the author of the LOLLIES award winning book, The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates, The Incredible Record Smashers and Grandpa Frank’s Great Big Bucket List. She also co-authored Tuchus and Topps Investigate the Underpants of Chaos with Sam Copeland 

Patrice Lawrence has won many prizes including the YA Prize, the Waterstones Prize for Older Children’s Fiction, the Crimefest YA Prize twice and the inaugural Jhalak Prize for Children and Young People. The Elemental Detectives, her Georgian fantasy middle grade is published in September 2022. She is an ambassador for the creative writing charity First Story.

Phil Earle is slightly obsessive about children’s fiction, so it isn’t a surprise that he decided to try and write some himself. His debut novel, Being Billy, was nominated for a dozen awards, including the Carnegie Medal and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. He lives with his family in London, writes on the bus and has no plans to write a novel for adults, although he might read one. One day.

[Chair] A.M. Dassu is the internationally acclaimed author of Boy, Everywhere, which has been listed for 25 awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal, is the 2021 winner of The Little Rebels Award for Radical Fiction and is also an American Library Association Notable Book. She is a director at Inclusive Minds, which is an organisation for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature, and one of The National Literacy Trust’s Connecting Stories campaign authors, aiming to help inspire a love of reading and writing in children and young people. A. M. Dassu grew up in the Midlands dreaming of becoming a writer but studied economics instead and worked in marketing and project management before realising her dream. She writes books that challenge stereotypes, humanise the “other” and are full of empathy, hope and heart. Her latest novel, Fight Back is out now. You can also find her on Twitter @a_reflective or Instagram @a.m.dassu.

Cynthia Murphy is a YA writer from the North-West of England. She has a long-standing love affair with all things scary, reading Point Horrors at primary school before graduating to Stephen King in her misguided teens. Classic 90s and 00s horror movies are definitely her pub quiz strong point and her first love may well have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Studying for a degree in Art History and Archaeology meant that she developed a thirst for anything old, beautiful and very often dead. She tries to combine this with contemporary settings in her writing to make unique and chilling modern stories. Cynthia is married to her best friend and they are ruled by a Romanian rescue dog called Loli.

Naomi Gibson was born in 1988 and grew up in Cheshire, UK. Her childhood was spent with her nose in a book and her hands on a sketchpad, constantly in search of adventure and new worlds. Encouraged by her family to be creative, she developed a love for writing at a young age – something that never left her. She studied Art History at the University of Manchester. Whilst there, she met her husband, someone who continues to tell her all about the latest advancements in AI, space, and consumer technology, even when she’s not listening. Every Line Of You is her first novel, and proof she does in fact listen to her husband.

Georgia Bowers lives in Bedford, a small market town in England. When she got to the age where she had to decide what to do with her life, she was obsessed with two things: books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seemed sensible to follow in the brogued footsteps of Rupert Giles, so she became a librarian, though sadly not the demon fighting kind. But there’s still time. Ever since her mum told her that witches used to meet in the woods near their village she has been obsessed with witchcraft and the paranormal. When she was a teenager, a weekly habit of Point Horrors satisfied her thirst for chilling tales before she moved on to reading Stephen King. These days she likes to give her nerves a break every now and then with a good YA romance. After completing a course in writing YA fiction she was a winner in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Undiscovered Voices. Since then she has dabbled with stories of chosen ones and ghostly best friends until she conjured up the magical ingredients for her debut novel, Mark of the Wicked.

[Chair] Melissa Welliver is a speculative Young Adult author represented by Lucy Irvine at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop. Her debut novel, The Undying Tower, was published by Agora Books  in October 2021. Melissa has been a mentor for the last three years since WriteMentor’s inception. Apart from writing, she works as a freelance editor and has several testimonials on her website.

Sophie Cleverly was born in Bath in 1989. She studied for a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Writing For Young People. Her book series Scarlet and Ivy and The Violet Veil Mysteries are published by HarperCollins worldwide, as well as being translated into 7 different languages so far.

Emma Read is the author of the Milton the Mighty books, published by Chicken House.  She is also a big fan of the side hustle, being a long-serving member of WriteMentor, as well as a tutor with Creative Writing Ink, a freelance novel editor, as EmDashED, and owner of StorySpinners – a creative writing club for 7 to 11-year-olds.

Emma Finlayson-Palmer lives in the West Midlands with her husband and a multitude of children, cats and chickens! She an author, artist and illustrator. She runs #ukteenchat, a writing themed chat on Twitter; mentors for #WriteMentor and is one half of Word Witches, an editing and mentoring business. Emma’s first book for 5-8 year old readers, Autumn Moonbeam: Dance Magic, is published by UCLan.

[Chair] Emily Randall has worked as a touring actor, an historical interpreter at Hampton Court and for the National Trust, creating events, exhibitions and interpretation. She writes haunting middle-grade mysteries and has won both the Mslexia Children’s Novel and YA competition and the Times/Chicken House Competition. She’s represented by Lucy Irvine at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop and her debut novel will be published in spring 2023. When she’s not writing, she’s busy raising two young children. On days off she can be found near the sea, at the pub or eating cake. Or all three. 

Sarah Daniels is a former archaeologist who escaped academia and now writes stories from her home in rural Lincolnshire. The Stranded is the first book in a duology.

Rachael Davis is a mixed-raced British-Black Caribbean children’s author and book reviewer. She writes for children of all ages, both fiction and non-fiction, and is passionate about showcasing diversity, mental wellness and the links between science and art. Her debut picture book, I Am Not a Prince (Hachette, January 2022), is a twisted fairy tale challenging gender stereotypes, illustrated by Beatrix Hatcher. Her debut non-fiction, A Mind Like Mine, breaks down mental health stigma and is publishing on 5th July 2022 with Quarto, illustrated by Islenia Mil. She is also working on titles with Flying Eye Books, Scholastic, Hodder, HarperCollins and a fantasy chapter book series via Storymix. Rachael is a picture book mentor for WriteMentor.

Katina Wright is a disabled writer and mum who deals with chronic health conditions by using writing and creativity. Imagination is her refuge from reality and a doorway to places where nothing is impossible. She’s explored and shared this idea through music, theatre, jewellery design, running children’s creative writing projects and writing. Believing it’s important for all readers to see themselves in books – her focus is on writing stories where disabled heroes and protagonists with chronic health conditions lead the adventures. Writing MG and YA books, articles, poems and short fiction, Katina’s an active member of SCWBI and Write Mentor. Having found them an invaluable support and joy, her constant advice to new writers is to join a writing community. Along with a few competition successes and published articles, Katina was a WriteMentor Mentee in 2018. Glitter, laughter and kindness are three of her favourite life hacks. 

[Chair] Melissa Welliver is a speculative Young Adult author represented by Lucy Irvine at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop. Her debut novel, The Undying Tower, was published by Agora Books  in October 2021. Melissa has been a mentor for the last three years since WriteMentor’s inception. Apart from writing, she works as a freelance editor and has several testimonials on her website.