Bath Festival of Children's Literature

Organisers John and Gill McLay built the Festival from scratch three years ago and have seen the event grow and thrive in that time. Embarking on family life right as the Festival brochures were delivered in July 2009 encouraged a re-think in the working patterns for the couple. As Gill says "We were determined, having created this successful Festival, that we must find a way for it to continue and grow so that there are still great events for us to take our son Charlie to in 5 years time!". Hence their approach to the Bath Festivals team with a proposition to join forces.

John and Gill remain in position as Artistic Directors of the Festival supplying the ideas, direction, themes and line-up for the Festival. The Bath Festivals team meanwhile pick up the reins of the logistics from production through marketing, sponsorship-raising, event management and PR, working alongside the fantastic current team of loyal volunteers.

In other words, it is business as usual for next September's Festival and big names are already being pencilled in for the 4th Bath Festival of Children's Literature including a rare chance to meet the Children's Laureate Anthony Browne - who will also be drawing this years' Festival image. The dates of this year's festival are Friday 24th September to Sunday 3rd October. Tickets will be available later in the summer. If you can help support the Festival, call the Bath Festivals office on 01225 462231.

"The Festival of Children's Literature is a hugely complementary and welcome addition to the other two Festivals which we co-ordinate" commented Nod Knowles, Chief Executive of Bath Festivals "and I am quite sure that both teams will gain a great deal from working together. One of the areas expected to benefit particularly from the partnership is the continually evolving year round education programme and already new ideas are forming to add to the existing programmes of visiting authors to schools and writing competitions."