Frightened of poetry? Think it’s boring or not for you? This live online workshop with the current Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho, will blow your mind! Find out how to incorporate poetry into your craft and watch how it brings your writing and/or illustrations to life. Joseph will talk you through some simple poetry exercises and give you lots of take-away tips in this exclusive live masterclass and Q&A
To view our full festival line-up, click here. A weekend pass is available for just £80!
And There's More... Pitch Your Work to a Literary Agent!
Reserving a place at this masterclass entitles you to a place at our agent panel discussion, which begins at 15.00 on Sunday 26th March 2023.
Two specialist children’s agents, Davinia Andrew-Lynch (Andlyn Literary Agency) and Penny Holroyde (Holroyde Cartey Literary Agency) will join us to critique your pitches live, offer general guidance and advice on the submission process for both authors and/or illustrators, and take questions via a live Q&A.
Ahead of this session, you will be invited to submit your own novel pitch. A select number of pitches will then be chosen by our agents, and critiqued during the session itself! Look out for an email from W&A in days leading up to the festival, which will contain all the information you need about how to submit your pitch.
Festival Raffle
Every festival attendee is automatically entered into our festival raffle, while weekend pass holders receive two raffle entries. The raffle will be drawn at the end of the festival, with the following prizes up for grabs:
3rd prize: Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2023 and Bloomsbury Children's book bundle
2nd prize: complimentary place at any W&A evening masterclass (RRP £30) + Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2023 and Bloomsbury Children's book bundle
1st prize: gratis Opening Chapters editing service (RRP £240/£380)
Festival Bookshop
Our festival bookshop partner is the Children's Bookshop in Muswell Hill. They are selling a range of books written by our festival speakers and can be purchased with a 15% discount over on their festival bookshop page.
Joseph Coelho is a multi-award winning children’s author and playwright. He writes across several mediums for children including stage plays, picture books, non-fiction and middle grade. His latest ‘Story told in poems’ The Girl Who Became A Tree was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and received a special mention from the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2021. His latest stage play Jack Frost And The Search For Winter recently finished a UK wide tour with Tutti Frutti Productions. He wrote and presented ‘Teach Poetry’ - a 10-part BBC online series that aims to make the writing of poetry fun and accessible to all and is the Waterstones Children's Laureate 2022 - 2024.
A booking for this event gives you access to the following: an online masterclass with Joseph Coelho (11:00-12.30, Saturday 25th March 2023) and a panel discussion with literary agents (15.00-16.30, Sunday 26th March 2023), while you will also automatically receive a single entry into our festival raffle.
Like the rest of the festival, this masterclass session will take place online in full and will be presented using video conferencing software. Joining instructions, links, and full guidance will be circulated for the above in the week leading up to the festival.
Any event materials associated to this masterclass will be made available to attendees at the author's discretion, with any live recordings of this event made available for a time-limited period.
This individual masterclass session is priced at £45 (inc. VAT), and payable in full online.
Please note that payment instalment plans are available for all W&A events, writing courses and editing services. Contact W&A Admin on events@writersandartists.co.uk so that we can find a payment schedule that works for you.
To view our event refund and cancellation policy, please click here.
Accessible to All
It’s of real importance to Writers & Artists that our events and courses remain accessible to all.
- Writers & Artists has made up to three full weekend passes available for our festival as part of our accessibility scheme. Please visit our bursaries page for further information about how to apply. All bursary applications must have been submitted for consideration by 5th March 2023
- At the author’s discretion, event materials will be made available to attendees after the masterclass.
- A link to a recording of the masterclass will be circulated after the event. This will be made available to event attendees only, and for a time-limited period.
- Each event will include written text and visuals. Please contact us in advance so that we can make arrangements to be sure all documents appear in a format that works for you.
- If you’d like to attend but have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, then please email AccessWA@bloomsbury.com
