Sarah Webb, award-winning children's writer and part of the WonderFest team, writes for Culture about this brand new digital festival for families and schools, which runs from Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd November.
WonderFest is a brand new festival for families and schools, the first fully online book festival for children in Ireland. And it all started with a virtual coffee morning!
In September Children's Books Ireland, an organisation which promotes children’s books and supports children’s writers and illustrators, ran a coffee morning on Zoom for artists. We talked about how hard this year had been for so many people across the country, including children’s writers and illustrators.
Usually, we’d be busy visiting schools to deliver workshops, talking at libraries and book festivals – meeting young readers and encouraging them to love books as much as we do!
During the morning, twelve brave and intrepid writers and illustrators made a decision – we’d band together to do something positive to support and celebrate Irish writers and illustrators, especially those with books out in 2020, a very challenging year. So we created WonderFest, a festival that would celebrate and promote Irish children’s books, and from the very start we got stuck into building a book festival.
Picture book writer and illustrator and designer, Alan O'Rourke built the website, children’s writer and illustrator Mary Murphy created the whale logo, Ashwin Chacko worked on videos for social media and I got stuck into the programming, asking dozens of Irish children’s writers to get involved as speakers. Pretty much everyone I approached said yes, including Eoin Colfer, Oliver Jeffers, Judi Curtin and Chris Haughton. Pavilion Theatre came on board to run the ticketing and to pay the artists, and Children’s Books Ireland offered advice and administration help. It really has been a team effort.
We were keen to make all the experiences for audiences live and interactive – one thing us writers and illustrators have all missed during the last few months is interacting with our readers. We miss the children’s brilliant questions at the end of our events, we miss chatting to the parents, librarians and teachers, recommending books their children or classes might like to read, sharing our love of children’s books and creativity.
So we created 29 different events, something for everyone. The highlights include Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers in conversation with Patricia Forde on Sunday 22nd November. Eoin and Oliver became firm friends in 2015 when they worked on a book together. There is something fascinating about literary friendships and these two men are world-class creative powerhouses. It’s bound to be a fascinating event.
Much loved picture book maker, Chris Judge will present Eggcorns: From Bumbumbees to Jellycopters on Saturday 21st November, a fun draw-along workshop for all the family. Chris has been creating clouds with faces during Lockdown, and at this event he will be showing families how to draw funny faces on carrots!
And children will love Nicola Colton and Sheena Dempsey’s drawing and story workshop, Fizzy and the Mermaids, on Sunday 22nd November.
WonderFest runs from Friday 20th November to Sunday 22nd November, and we are really looking forward to sharing all the events with children, their families and classmates, all over Ireland and beyond. Let’s celebrate children’s books together!
Find out more about WonderFest here.
