Brighton Rocks Books

In fact, everywhere rocks books, but Brighton, my hometown on the South coast of England, will be positively blaring out bookish love on the 11th July for a very special event, dreamed up by myself and fellow authors Tatum Flynn and Lisa Heathfield.

It all started because we'd noticed that there were an awful lot of brilliant kid lit authors kicking around the city with not much to do on a Saturday, so we decided to see how many of them we could get together in one place to talk about books.

A few tweets and emails later we had an answer: 12! All published authors of fantastic books suitable for kids aged 8-18.

This was obviously going to require a bigger venue than my front room, so we approached the award-winning Brighton Jubilee Library and the lovely folk there suggested that we could run our event to coincide with the start of their Summer Reading Challenge. We jumped at this opportunity, not least because the library has tons of space and comfy chairs, but also because it means that the event could be absolutely FREE!

What could be better? we thought.

Then something better happened.

The new Children's Laureate was announced. And it was an author from Brighton!

And not just any old author, but CHRIS RIDDELL, author, illustrator extraordinaire and all round good guy.

Of course, we thought, the newly-crowned Royal Highness of Reading would be much too busy and important to come along to our little old event.

But we asked him, and he said, 'Wonderful. I'll pop by and do some drawing.'

So, it's really happening. And we'd love YOU to come. The day starts at 11am and is suitable for anyone from 5 upwards, though anyone under 8 might get a bit wriggly if they have to sit and listen for too long.

There will be panels, workshops, books for sale, and children's authors wandering around who will be delighted to talk to you about books and reading, and sign any copies you buy or bring along.

And here's the lineup:

*big breath* AF Harold, Julia Lee, Tatum Flynn, Cameron McAllister, Nikki Sheehan (me), Jenny McLachlan, Sarah Sky, John Walter, Jane McLoughlin, Lisa Heathfield, Eve Ainsworth, Jess Valence, Nicky Singer, and, of course, Chris Riddell.

Hope we'll see you there!