Books / Storytale Festival

Storytale Festival announces inaugural Writers’ Day at Arnos Vale

By Sarski Anderson  Tuesday Apr 29, 2025

With six chapters now behind it, Bristol’s annual celebration of children’s literature Storytale Festival will be taking a pause on its main event in 2025, focusing instead on the opportunity “to reflect, grow, and strengthen the festival behind the scenes”.

This leaves space to work on building creative, engaging and fun activities and events led by authors and illustrators.

The inaugural Storytale Writers’ Day has now been announced, and will take place on May 10 at Arnos Vale.

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Storytale Writers Day 2025 – photo: Storytale Festival CIC

Aimed at aspiring and emerging adult writers of middle grade fiction (9-12 years), the event will comprise a mix of indoor and outdoor workshops; “sessions that will explore ideas, characters, setting and editing in a creative and interactive way”.

Hosting a variety of guest speakers, the day will also feature writing workshops and a valuable chance to connect with the local children’s fiction community.

Ash Bond – photo: courtesy of the author. Formerly a Creative Writing PhD student at The University of Bristol, Bond has landed a six-figure book deal with Piccadilly Press for her Peregrine Quinn series

Themes to be discussed range from character development and self-editing to finding an authentic voice for a young audience, with workshops led by esteemed local authors Sophie Kirtley (The Wild Way Home, Bloomsbury), Rachel Delahaye (Mort the Meek, Little Tiger), Ash Bond (Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Bond, Piccadilly Press), and Emma Read (The Housetrap, Chicken House).

The day is set to conclude with a Publishing Panel discussion and Q&A, hosted by Penny Thomas (co-founder and publisher at Firefly Press), Jo Nadin (author, editor and academic) and Gill Mclay (children’s book agent).

 

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Storytale Futures: Writer’s Day – Writing Middle Grade Fiction is at Arnos Vale on May 10 at 9.30am-5pm (open to adults only). For more information and to book tickets, visit www.tickettailor.com.

Follow the latest updates on @storytalefest, or visit www.storytalefestival.com.

Main photo: Storytale Festival CIC

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