Full lineup and schedule for Children's Books Ireland International Conference 2024

David Almond

David Almond is a bestselling British author whose novels for children include Skellig, Bone Music, The Dam, and Kit’s Wilderness. He has won numerous awards, including the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award and was awarded an OBE in 2021 for his services to literature. David's next book, Kevin and the Blackbirds is illustrated by former Laureate na nÓg P.J Lynch and will be published in October 2024. 

Chris Haughton

Chris Haughton is an award-winning designer and illustrator of children's books including Don't Worry, Little Crab, Maybe and Well Done, Mummy Penguin. His début children's book A Bit Lost was published in 2010 and has since been translated into 35 languages, winning swards in 12 countries. His first non-fiction book The History of Information explores how language and information has been recorded and how this has affected humanity. It will be published in September 2024 and forms the artwork of this year's #CBIConf24. 

Harry Woodgate

Harry Woodgate (pronouns: they/them) is an award-winning author and illustrator. Their books include Grandad's Camper, Grandad's Pride and Timid. Their début author-illustrator title Grandad's Camper won the Waterstones Children's Books Prize Best Illustrated Book in 2022 then went on to win Children's Illustrated Book of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2023. Harry is passionate about writing and illustrating diverse, inclusive stories that inspire children to be inquisitive, creative, kind and proud of what makes them unique.  

Sophie Kirtley

Sophie Kirtley is a prize-winning author of middle-grade novels such as The Wild Way Home and The Way to Impossible Island. Sophie grew up in Northern Ireland and nowadays lives in Wiltshire with her husband, three children and their mini-menagerie of pets and wild things. Sophie has always loved stories; she has taught English and has worked in a theatre, a bookshop and a tiny pub where folk tell fairytales by candlelight which led her to becoming a children's author. 

Oein DeBhairduin

Oein DeBhairduin Oein DeBhairduin is a writer, activist and educator with a passion for preserving the beauty of Traveller tales, sayings, retellings and historic exchanges. He is the author of the award-winning Why the moon travels. His other works include Weave, The Slug and the Snail and Twiggy Woman. He is the Traveller Culture Collections Development Officer with the National Museum of Ireland and seeks to pair community activism with cultural celebration, recalling old tales with fresh modern connections and, most of all, he wishes to rekindle the hearth fires of a shared kinship.

Tristan Rosenstock

Tristan Rosenstock is a children's author who writes in the Irish language. His début book Inis Mara, illustrated by Mark Wickham, was selected as one of the €1.50 books available to children throughout the country on World Book Day in 2024. As well as writing books, Tristan is an editor and broadcaster. He presents RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta’s arts series An Cúinne Dána along with other literary programmes and is literary editor of the monthly magazine Comhar. 

New Voices

The popular New Voices panel returns this year to the Children's Books Ireland International Conference, offering debut children’s artists the opportunity to present or read from their book alongside their peers. In 2024 Children’s Books Ireland has selected 10 Irish début artists (authors/illustrators) for the New Voices slot.

Meet the New Voices 2024

Samira Ahmed

Samira Ahmed is the New York Times-bestselling and award winning author of young adult novels Love, Hate & Other Filters; Internment; Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know; Hollow Fires; This Book Won’t Burn; and the Amira & Hamza middle grade fantasy series. She is the first South Asian Muslim writer of the popular Marvel Comics superhero Ms. Marvel. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in publications and anthologies including The New York Times, Who Will Speak for America, Take the Mic, Color Outside the Lines, Vampires Never Get Old, and A Universe of Wishes.

Chloe Savage

Chloe Savage is British award-winning author-illustrator. Chloe won Best Illustrated Book at the 2024 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish,  and was shortlisted for the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration. Her next book, The Search for Carmella will be released in November 2024.

Nathanael Lessore

Nathanael Lessore is a London born and based author. His début book Steady For This was shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing 2024 and most recently won the Branford Boase Award 2024. He is also the author of King of Nothing. Nathanael writes stories that show his South East London childhood as the funny, warm, adventurous world that wasn't always represented as such while growing up. 

Olivia Hope and Fiona Woodcock 

Olivia Hope is an Irish writer with a special love for fiction about wild children. Her first picture book was Be Wild, Little One and her other works include Bí Fiáin, a Chroí. Before becoming an author, she was a teacher, creative arts facilitator and even an international athlete! 

Fiona Woodcock is an illustrator and picturebook author. Her début book Hiding Heidi was nominated for the 2017 Kate Greenaway award. Her other works include Poppy and the Blooms, Look, Hello and Silver Linings. 

Patricia Forde, Laureate na nÓg

Patricia Forde is Laureate na nÓg (2023-2026) and she writes in English and in Irish, with work ranging from picture books to speculative middle-grade fiction. She has written more than twenty books, along with plays, television series and even a film. Her ambition as Laureate is to encourage wild creativity– bringing children, writers and illustrators together to inspire one another, to imagine new worlds, and most of all to have fun along the way.