SoA in Person | Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group Conference

Get Ready for an inspiring day at the CWIG Conference!

Join us in person for the long-awaited return of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group Conference, a one-day event of creativity, connection, and career-changing inspiration.

Packed with practical advice on everything from school visits to publishing contracts, plus interactive sessions to recharge your creative energy, this is your chance to refocus and re-energise.

The day of panels and talks will also give you the opportunity to catch up with your fellow children’s authors and illustrators. We’ll finish with the inaugural CWIG quiz and drinks.

Book a place before 4th September to take advantage of our early bird rate. We look forward to seeing you for our first conference since 2019!

Programme

• 10am – Guest arrivals – tea, coffee and biscuits on arrival

• 10.25am – Welcome from the CWIG Chair, Abie Longstaff

• 10.30am-11.30am – Forging and maintaining relationships with schools. School visits are a lifeline for many children’s authors. So how can you ensure a successful visit, encourage repeat bookings and maximise book sales? Learn key lessons from the experiences of SLA CEO Victoria Dilly and authors Holly Webb and Davina Hamilton, chaired by Chris Bradford.

• 11.35am-12.30pm – Publishing contracts for children’s books – the SoA’s Advisory team advises members on thousands of contracts every year. CWIG Coordinator Sarah Burton will discuss how to navigate common pitfalls and highlight the key contractual points every children’s author and illustrator should know and understand.

• 12.30pm-1.30pm – Lunch

• 1.30pm-2.30pm – Making changes – how to rekindle, reinvigorate, and transform your own creative practice chaired by Josh Lacey with Garry Parsons, Gita Ralleigh and Jo Nadin. All creative people sometimes feel stuck in a rut, blocked, lost, or as if they are repeating themselves. How do we revitalise our creativity? And where do we continue to find inspiration – from our imaginations, our students, our children, the world, or…? This panel discussion will examine how writers and illustrators stay creative through their lives, finding inspiration in new ways and from different sources, transforming and developing their work, and building on their experience as artists and human beings.

• 2.40pm-3.40pm – Creative Wellbeing with Abie Longstaff and Chris Bradford.
  An interactive and practical session, sharing how we can enhance creativity, build resilience, and maintain balance in our creative lives.

• 3.40pm-4pm – Break – tea & coffee

• 4-5pm – The inaugural CWIG Quiz hosted by Joanna Nadin

• 5-6pm – Networking drinks

• 6pm – Event closes

About the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG)

Creators of content for the children’s books market

Our Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG) is a professional community of writers and illustrators who create content for the children’s publishing market.

We campaign as a group on issues of specific relevance to us, as well as raising the profile of children’s books more generally. 

An elected committee directs the work of the group, and it is managed day to day by coordinator Sarah Burton. Please see the CWIG committee page for details and deadlines for upcoming vacancies.

The Line-up

Abie Longstaff

Abie Longstaff is a best-selling author of children’s fiction. Her picture books include ‘The Fairytale Hairdresser’ (on Nickelodeon as ‘Sunny Day’) and the ‘Before the Fairy Tale’ series. For older children, she writes ‘The Magic Potions Shop’ series and ‘The Trapdoor Mysteries’ books. She also writes school readers for a range of educational publishers.

Abie regularly appears at literary festivals and schools, and gives mentoring and manuscript advice.

Instagram: @abielongstaff | Bluesky: ‪@abielongstaff.bsky.social | Substack: Publishing Peptalk  

Davina Hamilton

Davina Hamilton is a rhyming children’s author, journalist and mother-of-two. The former Entertainment Editor for British publication, The Voice newspaper, Davina spent 14 years with the company, before making her foray into the world of children’s literature.

2017 saw the release of her critically acclaimed debut children’s book, Riley Can Be Anything. Her celebrated follow-up title, Riley Knows He Can was released in 2018; followed by Ella Has A Plan in 2020 and Riley Finds His Beat in 2023.

Chris Bradford

Chris Bradford is the multi-million copy bestselling author of the Young Samurai (Puffin), Bodyguard (Puffin) and Jake and Jen series (Harper Collins). Renowned for his dynamic author events and ‘method writing’ technique, Chris is a black belt martial artist, qualified professional bodyguard and former musician. His books are published in over 25 languages and have garnered more than 35 children’s book awards and nominations, including the Carnegie Medal and Red House Children’s Book Award. His life goal is #GettingKidsReading.

Gita Ralleigh

Gita Ralleigh grew up reading fantasy adventures that took her to faraway lands. The closest she came was on family holidays to India, where old palaces, ice-capped mountains, monkeys and elephants were part of everyday life. After a career as a medical doctor, she studied for an MA in Creative Writing and wrote short stories and poetry, winning the Wasafiri prize for fiction in 2013, as well as two poetry books. Her children’s novels, The Destiny of Minou Moonshine and The Voyage of Sam Singh are published by Zephyr/Bloomsbury. She lives in London with her two children and teaches creative writing to undergraduates at Imperial College.

Garry Parsons

Garry Parsons is an illustrator of many books for children including Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray (winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award), Ouch in My Pouch by Jeanne Willis and best-selling picture book series The Dinosaur That Pooped… with Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter published by Puffin. Garry is the author and illustrator of the picture book “Krong!”

For older readers, Garry has illustrated George’s Secret Key to the Universe and its subsequent series of space adventures written by Lucy and Stephen Hawking, as well as the hilarious emails of Josh Lacey’s The Dragonsitter series for Andersen Press, shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Parsons and Lacey are currently working on a series of historical fiction books, The Time Travel Twins.

Garry studied Fine Art at Canterbury and Illustration at the Sequential Design M.A at University of Brighton under John Vernon Lord and George Hardie. Garry combines his commercial career in illustration with other practises as artist and designer. As an illustrator, Garry regularly visits schools inspiring enjoyment of reading and drawing through creative workshops, World Book Day events and The Big Draw. Garry enjoys supporting environmental charities and marathon running. Garry lives on the Kent coast with his young family.

Website: www.garryparsons.co.uk | Instagram: @icandrawdinos | @garryparsons_art

Holly Webb

Holly Webb started writing twenty-two years ago while working as an editor at a children’s publisher. She now writes full-time, and has written over a hundred and seventy books, which have been translated into thirty-three languages. Her most recent titles are The Summer Puppy and The Woodland Badger for Little Tiger, and The Guinea-Pig Party for Barrington Stoke. Holly lives in Reading with her husband and three demanding cats.

Website: www.holly-webb.com | Instagram: @hollywebbauthor

Joanna Nadin

Joanna Nadin is a former broadcast journalist and special adviser to the Prime Minister. Since leaving politics, she’s written more than a hundred books for children, teenagers and adults, including the Sunday Times bestselling The Worst Class in the World series, and the Carnegie-nominated Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama. She has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal four times, shortlisted twice for the LOLLIES, as well as the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Little Rebels Award, and the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year.

She has been a World Book Day author, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick, an Empathy Lab pick, a Blue Peter Book of the Month and a Radio 4 Book of the Year. Her books for older readers investigate identity and for younger readers celebrate diversity and ‘not fitting in’. When she isn’t writing, she’s teaching others to write as an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at University of Bristol, and for Arvon and John Yorke Story. She has a PhD in young adult literature and lives in Bath.

Josh Lacey

Josh Lacey has written about 40 books for children and one for adults. In the past, he worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a screenwriter. He has written for various age groups, and his books range from The Pet Potato, a picture book illustrated by Momoko Abe, to middle-grade novels like The Island of Thieves. He has worked with different illustrators, including Jim Field, Beatrice Castro, and Garry Parsons, who illustrated the ten books in the Dragonsitter series. His books have been translated into twenty languages and published in the USA by Little Brown, Penguin Random House, and Macmillan.

Victoria Dilly

Victoria Dilly has worked in education for 20 years, initially as a school librarian herself and then leading national education programmes for organisations such as National Literacy Trust, Royal Horticultural Society and Young Enterprise.  An avid reader from a young age, Victoria believes in the power of stories to transform. She is excited to be advocating for school libraries, and to expand the reach of the SLA so that more schools around the country can enjoy the benefits of vibrant, well-resourced and well-used school libraries, helping children and young people to fulfil their full potential.

Sarah Burton

Sarah Burton is the Deputy Chief Executive at the SoA. Sarah also leads the advisory team and advises members on all business aspects of the writing profession, including vetting contracts. As coordinator of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group, she has a particular interest in industry issues affecting creators of children’s books.

Accessibility

• Our events space is located on the ground floor of our office; we have a wheelchair ramp round the side entrance of the building. We also have an accessible toilet by the side entrance.
• If you require BSL interpretation to take part in this event, please email events@societyofauthors.org.
• If you have any other accessibility needs, please email events@societyofauthors.org

Feeling unwell?

We recommend the following:

• Staying home if you’re feeling unwell or have flu-like symptoms
• Washing your hands when coming in from the outdoors and / or before touching your face
• Applying alcohol hand sanitiser (we will have these on site)
• We advise attendees to wear a face mask if they feel comfortable doing so

Booking

Please read our event booking Terms and Conditions: https://societyofauthors.org/legal-privacy/event-terms/ 

Book your place by using the registration form below.

Tickets 

£65 – Early Bird SoA Member Tickets. Book by Thursday 4 September.

£75 – SoA Member Tickets from Friday 5 September

£90 – Non-Members 

**We can only issue refunds up to 7 days prior to the event date, any refund claims after that period will be invalid**