Once Upon A Place at the Electric Picnic

We had a brilliant weekend hanging out with some of Ireland's best writers at the Electric Picnic music and Arts Festival.

The focus for us was Once Upon A Place, a wonderful book of short stories and poems with illustrations by me. The project was initiated by Laureate Na nÓg, Eoin Colfer to help to reacquaint Irish children with the beauty and magic of our country.

The book is published by Little Island and comes out in October
 Enda Wyley was there reading her own poem from the book, and talking about the other poets featured therein. She's not only an amazing writer but a great reader as well. 

I did some live drawing on Saturday wilst Eoin chatted with author/publisher Siobhán Parkinson, poet Enda Wyley and our expert compere, (give that woman a chatshow) Patricia Forde.

Next day another starry group including  Roddy Doyle, Sarah Webb , Oisín McGann and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick read  extracts from their stories. 

Click here see what Marie-Louise and husband Michael Emberley got up to at the Electric Picnic.

Many thanks are due to Children's Books Ireland, and Little Island for alltheir work on this project and for making the inaugural Electric Picnic children's literature event such a great success.

CBI Irish Children's Book Awards

My dear friend Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick has just won the CBI Book Award for her novel Hagwitch.
The presentation in Dublin was a lovely event, and it was great to catch up with Marie-Louise and her husband, Michael Emberley, as well as the other shortlistees, Siobhán Parkinson, Paula Leyden, Derek Landy, Sheena Wilkinson, Oliver Jeffers and Eoin Colfer, our new Laureate na nÓg.
We had a lovely time celebrating with a great bunch of publishers, agents and families, as well as all of the lovely folks from CBI.
And I was lucky enough to pick up the CBI Award for Illustration myself for my work on Mysterious Traveller by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham.
Many thanks to Anne from Hodder for our lovely celebratory lunch.
Here are some photos from the day. 

Buzzing with Books

I am delighted to confirm that I will be taking part in the Buzzing with Books Conference at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick on the 22nd and 23rd of May. 

It should be a lot of fun as the other keynote speakers are all good friends of mine. Siobhan Parkinson, our first Laureate na nÓg will be there, as will my birthday buddy Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick and her husband Michael Emberley.

The conference stems from the long partnership between Mary Immaculate College and Frostburg State University, located in western Maryland, USA, as well as from the input of other important conference partners.

I was privileged to speak at Frostburg's own Children's literature Festival a number of years ago and am looking forward to meeting up with some old friends from Maryland who will be visiting the conference in Limerick. And I also look forward to meeting some of you there too I hope.

Pictiúr

CBI have announced that Pictiúr, an exciting new exhibition of the work of some of Ireland’s leading children’s book illustrators and which has been curated by Laureate na nÓg, Niamh Sharkey, will visit four venues in Europe during Ireland’s Presidency of the EU, before returning to Ireland to tour.

I'm delighted to be one of the illustrators involved.
This picture from The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is one of my originals in the show.

Here's a list of the featured Illustrators:

Lily Bernard              Adrienne Geoghegan            Anita Jeram         Donough O’Malley
Alan Clarke                Olivia Golden                         Chris Judge          Niamh Sharkey
Michael Emberley    Chris Haughton                     P.J. Lynch            Steve Simpson
Tatiana Feeney         Paul Howard                          Oisin McGann      Kevin Waldron
Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick           Oliver Jeffers      Mary Murphy       Olwyn Whelan
Andrew Whitson

Enchanting Cologne

I've just returned from a wonderful trip to Cologne in Germany.
The indefatigable Uschi Schröter and her team at SK Stiftung Kultur organised for a group of Irish writers and illustrators to come over for their annual Children's Literature Festival.
This year it was entitled "Enchanted Ireland".





The Cathedral is breathtaking.


A visit to the Käthe Kollwitz Museum was a highlight for me.
I was dissappointed to find the museum closed when I got there, but a sweet lady, who was setting up the next exhibition, very kindly brought me in so that I got the gallery all to myself.
For those of us who admire great draughtsmanship, Käthe Kollwitz is at the top of the list.


Uschi, Ulricka and Oisín with me at the "Enchanted Ireland" Exhibition in the Altes Pfandhaus.


We were spread out over a couple of weeks so that I missed my old pals and Laureates Na nOg Siobhan Parkinson and Niamh Sharkey, but I was delighted to be able to spend some time with Marie-Louise FitzPatrick and her husband, Micheal Emberley, as well as Oisín McGann and Judi Curtin.


The best part though, was meeting and drawing with so many lovely German children, and getting to work and hang out with my wonderfully talented interpreter Caroline.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

I'm selecting a bunch of pictures for a forthcoming exhibition in Cologne, Germany in June. (I'll post more details later)
The show will be a three hander, focussing on the work of three Irish illustrators, me, and my good friends Marie-Louise FitzPatrick and Niamh Sharkey.
Here is one of my pictures that I know will be in the show.


It's an illustration I did for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" in "The Candlewick Book of Fairy Stories". (Also known as "Favourite Fairy Tales" and "Sainsbury's Book of Fairy Tales".)
The book includes a selection of classic fairy tales beautifully retold by Sarah Hayes.