Oct. 15th, 2023 at 4:28 PM
Adventuremice at Cheltenham Lit Fest 2023
This weekend Cheltenham Festival of Literature was hit by an Adventuremice invasion! All the Adventuremice... and Reeve and McIntyre, doing what we do.
Which, of course, involves taking glam selfies with my co-author Philip Reeve in the festival photo area.
Ah, we were not the only authors with this idea! Here are Laura Dockrill and Josh Silver:
And the actual Professional Photographer, Spencer McPherson from Still Moving Media, who took a bunch of photos (but we haven't seen them yet).
On Friday, we had a big stage event with 500 children from lots of different schools, and they were absolutely brilliant, such a fun crowd, with great ideas. Thanks to Gary and the tech team who helped us so much with the setup!
Photo tweeted by Upton St Leonards CofE Primary School
Photo tweeted by Isbourne Valley School
We did a quick signing in the Waterstones tent, hosted by Mason and Jess:
Then we legged it to the Author Lounge, where the wonderful Jo James (we love Jo!) had organised quick transport to the rail station...
...And we dashed off to Bridgwater in Somerset, where we gave the keynote speech for the Somerset Literacy Network conference!
It was great meeting so many teachers there who had used our books in schools (particularly Pugs of the Frozen North!). And we're very grateful to poet James Carter for spinning his event a bit longer so we could battle our way there as our train took an unexpected detour through Wales. But we made it, and it was wonderful to see everyone. Thanks so much to Sarah Cooke and Dora Allen for organising our visit; Sarah has been running SLN and is retiring now, handing over the reins to Dora at a charity called Libraries Unlimited, which Sarah's certain is the best possible fit.
Then we dashed back to Cheltenham! Next day, costume chanage.
Photo by Philip Reeve
Our main festival Adventuremice event (open to the public, this time) was happening at the Parabola Theatre, and we were lucky enough to be able to slip into historian Tom Holland's event, which was happening right before ours in the same venue.
I first met Tom back in 2016 at Marlborough Lit Fest and had very much enjoyed talking with him. So it was great to hear about the new book he'd made with illustrator Jason Cockcroft, The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks and the Gods: a Tale of the Persian Wars. Usually Tom does events for grownups, so it was kind of funny listening to the Question & Answer session at the end, where kids were asking him to list, in various ways, his favourite and least favourite Greek gods, which ones were the most powerful, etc. He has such a knack of making his answers interesting, spinning them out into terrific stories - and if you haven't heard his podcast with Dominic Sandbrooke, The Rest is History, you must check it out.
Big thanks to our tech teams at both of our Cheltenham events! The setup is everything, whether an event will go well or not, if people will be able to see and hear, and Event Manager Rose Harrison and her team at the Parabola did a terrific job.
A few more photos of the sights and faces of Cheltenham Lit Fest!
I was so glad to run into author Nii Parkes, whom I hadn't seen since 2012, when a bunch of comics friends and I ran the Pop-Up Comics Big Top of Awesome. He's been very busy since then, and I went to the shop and picked up a copy of his new fiction book, Azúcar.
Yay! It's writer-editor-translator-presenter Daniel 16-events Hahn! He's the No.1 person you're most likely to meet at any book gathering, the guy is a total festival pro and has probably read more books than anyone on the planet, all in prep for events he's chairing.
I also met author Andy Seed for the first time, in the author lounge:
Huge thanks to the Cheltenham Lit Fest team for hosting our events, Waterstones for selling our books, the catering team in the author lounge for feeding us so well, and to Fraser Hutchison and Meggie Dennis at David Fickling Books and Stuart Pyle for coordinating our (rather complicated) visit. To my co-author Philip Reeve for being generally fabulous.
And to everyone who came along, we hope you're enjoying the Adventuremice books! As ever, you can find fun, free, further activities at Adventuremice.com.
Which, of course, involves taking glam selfies with my co-author Philip Reeve in the festival photo area.
Ah, we were not the only authors with this idea! Here are Laura Dockrill and Josh Silver:
And the actual Professional Photographer, Spencer McPherson from Still Moving Media, who took a bunch of photos (but we haven't seen them yet).
On Friday, we had a big stage event with 500 children from lots of different schools, and they were absolutely brilliant, such a fun crowd, with great ideas. Thanks to Gary and the tech team who helped us so much with the setup!
Photo tweeted by Upton St Leonards CofE Primary School
Photo tweeted by Isbourne Valley School
We did a quick signing in the Waterstones tent, hosted by Mason and Jess:
Then we legged it to the Author Lounge, where the wonderful Jo James (we love Jo!) had organised quick transport to the rail station...
...And we dashed off to Bridgwater in Somerset, where we gave the keynote speech for the Somerset Literacy Network conference!
It was great meeting so many teachers there who had used our books in schools (particularly Pugs of the Frozen North!). And we're very grateful to poet James Carter for spinning his event a bit longer so we could battle our way there as our train took an unexpected detour through Wales. But we made it, and it was wonderful to see everyone. Thanks so much to Sarah Cooke and Dora Allen for organising our visit; Sarah has been running SLN and is retiring now, handing over the reins to Dora at a charity called Libraries Unlimited, which Sarah's certain is the best possible fit.
Then we dashed back to Cheltenham! Next day, costume chanage.
Photo by Philip Reeve
Our main festival Adventuremice event (open to the public, this time) was happening at the Parabola Theatre, and we were lucky enough to be able to slip into historian Tom Holland's event, which was happening right before ours in the same venue.
I first met Tom back in 2016 at Marlborough Lit Fest and had very much enjoyed talking with him. So it was great to hear about the new book he'd made with illustrator Jason Cockcroft, The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks and the Gods: a Tale of the Persian Wars. Usually Tom does events for grownups, so it was kind of funny listening to the Question & Answer session at the end, where kids were asking him to list, in various ways, his favourite and least favourite Greek gods, which ones were the most powerful, etc. He has such a knack of making his answers interesting, spinning them out into terrific stories - and if you haven't heard his podcast with Dominic Sandbrooke, The Rest is History, you must check it out.
Big thanks to our tech teams at both of our Cheltenham events! The setup is everything, whether an event will go well or not, if people will be able to see and hear, and Event Manager Rose Harrison and her team at the Parabola did a terrific job.
A few more photos of the sights and faces of Cheltenham Lit Fest!
I was so glad to run into author Nii Parkes, whom I hadn't seen since 2012, when a bunch of comics friends and I ran the Pop-Up Comics Big Top of Awesome. He's been very busy since then, and I went to the shop and picked up a copy of his new fiction book, Azúcar.
Yay! It's writer-editor-translator-presenter Daniel 16-events Hahn! He's the No.1 person you're most likely to meet at any book gathering, the guy is a total festival pro and has probably read more books than anyone on the planet, all in prep for events he's chairing.
I also met author Andy Seed for the first time, in the author lounge:
Huge thanks to the Cheltenham Lit Fest team for hosting our events, Waterstones for selling our books, the catering team in the author lounge for feeding us so well, and to Fraser Hutchison and Meggie Dennis at David Fickling Books and Stuart Pyle for coordinating our (rather complicated) visit. To my co-author Philip Reeve for being generally fabulous.
And to everyone who came along, we hope you're enjoying the Adventuremice books! As ever, you can find fun, free, further activities at Adventuremice.com.