Reviews: Writing for Children Workshop

Some feedback from delegates at our recent workshop on how to breath life into your story.

I met people in the industry that I wouldn’t normally get to meet outside of London and gained invaluable advice.”

I came away from this session armed with life-changing advice.”

Excellent advice on technical aspects of writing and editing process.”

Breathing Life into Your Story: 18 Mar 2017 Leicester: A Wolves & Apples Masterclass

Buy ticket here

Join Ben Illis and Beverley Birch for a day of tips, tricks, advice and guidance for anyone writing for children and young adults

What is a children’s book? What are age bands: what defines a middle-grade, teen and young adult work? How long should your manuscript be?  How do you turn a work in progress into a commercially viable book?  What is your story? (and how and why should it be told)? Who is telling your story and how?  We’ll be considering all this, along with tips on editing your own work, plotting, pace, tension and conflict, character, voice, point of view, non-verbal story-telling and how to be sure you’re letting your reader do their share of the work.

Ben Illis is an agent specialising in representing children’s, young adult and crossover fiction.  He has a reputation for discovering exciting new voices and has built an impressive list of prize-winning debut authors in teen and YA fiction, including the 2016 Costa Children’s Book Award winning author Brian Conaghan and the 2014 Scottish Teen Book Award winner, Claire McFall, who has now spent 16 consecutive months in the Chinese top 10 fiction chart and was recently named one of the ten most influential writers in China. Ben is also building a strong list of debut middle grade authors. 

Beverley Birch has been in children’s publishing, on both sides of the fence, for many years. As well as being an author of novels, picture books, biographies and retellings of classic works, she has been nominated for the Carnegie medal, and shortlisted for several other awards, both in the UK and abroad.  As an editor, Beverley has been three times shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award in recognition of the editor’s role in nurturing new talent. From the late 1990s she commissioned older fiction for Hodder Children’s Books, stepping down from her commissioning role in 2014 to focus on her own writing and teaching creative writing for a middle grade, teen and YA readership.

Ben and Beverley are regular guests at the York and Winchester Writers’ Festivals and workshop leaders at the Golden Egg Academy

Wolves & Apples Masterclass