Ipswich County Library will be hosting a free workshop next month to help aspiring children’s authors next month after winning a national competition to fund the event.
The library is one of several projects to win the ‘All Stories’ national competition to host a fully funded workshop to encourage and support aspiring writers from under-represented backgrounds.
The All Stories workshop will take place on Saturday 8 February at 1PM and will introduce aspiring writers to the basics of writing for children and developing their creativity. The event is free but spaces are limited so anyone interested is encouraged to book a space as soon as possible.
You don’t need any experience of publishing, writing as a career or previous written work to take part. The workshop is open to everyone and aims to provide an opportunity for people from under-represented groups and backgrounds.
The workshop is one of 16 All Stories workshops being held across the UK which have been made possible thanks to funding from Arts Council England, Inclusive Books for Children and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.
Following the workshop, the aim is to also establish a new writing group at Ipswich County Library to continue supporting local writers, as well as providing a ‘writer resources’ pack, containing information about supportive writing organisations. The pack will be available to anyone who is interested, not just those attending the workshop.
Ellen Clayton, Library and Information Advisor at Ipswich County Library who has been involved in coordinating the All Stories event, said:
“We were delighted to be successful as one of the winners in this national competition and are looking forward to offering this free workshop at Ipswich Library. We're really proud to be working with Jane Elson and All Stories to give new writers in our area the chance to work with an award-winning author, while contributing to improved access and diversity in the publishing industry.”
Jane Elson is a multi-award-winning dyslexic author. She won the Peters Book Award two years running and was twice nominated for the Carnegie Medal and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award. Jane was honoured to be included in the inaugural Top 50 Influential Neurodivergent Women list (2019) compiled by Women Beyond the Box. She enjoys being a regular guest on BBC Radio London’s Shay Kaur Grewal show.
After performing as a comedy improviser, Jane fell into writing stories and plays. Her play Leonardo Stole My Crayon, about young offenders and dyslexia, was the winner of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing.
Jane is proud to be a trustee for the charity Nacoa – the National Association for Children of Alcoholics – and was asked to speak at the House of Commons as part of the Stafford Ward Memorial Lecture to raise awareness, alongside MPs Jonanthan Ashworth and Liam Byrne, and Nacoa patron Calum Best. She is also an advocate for animal charity All Dogs Matter.
All Stories is funded by Arts Council England, ALCS (Authors’ Licencing and Collecting Society), Inclusive Books for Childre and supported in kind by SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, UK), The Royal Society of Literature, Pen to Print /Write On!, Megaphone, the Pocket Publicist and the Society of Authors.
