A long luxurious weekend of play, exploration, personal work time, group critiques and fun for picture book writers and illustrators. As well as the creative activities in our facilitated sessions, there will be time for work on personal projects. Evenings will be open for informal critique sessions, discussions on technique, craft and the children's publishing industry.
Are you ready for an invigorating weekend on the beautiful River Avon in Worcestershire? Ready to wake up each morning and jump into a creative workshop with our faculty to kick-start your picture book writing and illustrating, explore new techniques and experiment with words and images? Then join us at Holland House to do just those things!
As well as the creative activities in our facilitated sessions, there will be time for work on personal projects. Evenings will be open for informal critique sessions, discussions on technique, craft and the children's publishing industry.
This year's speakers:
Chris Haughton
Chris Haughton is an acclaimed Irish illustrator and author based in London. His debut book A Bit Lost was first published in Korean. It has been translated into 27 languages and has won 10 awards in 8 countries. Oh No George (Walker Books, 2012) was an Amazon Top 10 Picture Book of 2012. With SHH! We Have a Plan (Walker Books, 2014) he won, among other prizes, the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Irish Book Award. His beautiful bedtime book Goodnight Everyone (Walker Books, 2016) was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Award. Don’t Worry, Little Crab (Walker Books, 2019) is about a little crab who doesn't love the sea. His interactive projects include Hatmonkey, an app which released in 2014, and Little Earth, a virtual reality experience launched in August 2017.
Caryl Hart
Caryl Hart is an award-winning children's author who writes picture books and young fiction. She runs creative literacy workshops for schools, libraries, communities and festivals. Her books have won and been shortlisted for many regional and national awards: Meet the Oceans was one of Waterstones Best Books for Babies & Toddlers 2021 and Books for Topics' Best EYFS Curriculum Support 2021 Girls Can Do Anything was shortlisted for the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award, 2019. The Girl who Planted Trees won Teach Early Years Best Picture Book Award, 2022 and was chosen as one of the best books of 2022 by the U.K Children's Laureate, Joseph Coelho. Her best-selling Princess series and Albie series have each sold over a quarter of a million copies and her books are published in numerous languages all over the world.
Molly Littleboy
Molly Littleboy is Senior Editor for Picture Books and Preschool at Hachette Children’s Group, working across the Hodder and Orchard lists. Previously at Little Tiger, Molly is lucky enough to work with a plethora of talented, award-winning authors and illustrators, helping them to turn their exciting ideas into books that are published all over the world.
