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. 

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

Illustrators’ Evening with Oliver Jeffers, Sarah McIntyre and Me!

I will be taking part in an Illustrators’ Evening with Oliver Jeffers and Sarah McIntyre
Thursday, 08 September 2011 at 06:00 PM •
I am very much looking forward o seeing Oliver again, and to meeting Sarah for the first time.
Its happening at Eason’s Bookshop, O'Connell St. Dublin
Illustration! Q & A! Book Signing!
This is a ticketed event. Book in store or call Dublin 8583815

Recent School Visits

This is me giving a presentation recently at Our Lady & St Patrick's College in Knock near Belfast.
I did another the same day at Belfast Girls' Model School.
It was a great pleasure to meet and talk to young people who were mostly very interested in art as a possible career.
Especially as they were from my own home town.
When I was at school there was only one other student doing art in sixth form, and I was the first from my school to go on to Art College for many years.
By contrast, there were dozens of youngsters from these two schools considering going to Art College.
I made a big point of showing books by Martin Waddell, Sam McBratney, Anita Jeram, Flora McDonnell and Oliver Jeffers, all of whom are from or live in Northern Ireland, just to show the success that local artists and writers have had in the world of children's books.
There's another name to add to the list.
Emily Donegan, in year 14 at Knock, has already illustrated children’s book, "Alfred and the Pirates".
She did it when she was just fifteen years old.