Book Jive Live online with Ciaran Murtagh

The quarterly virtual spoken word event dedicated to children’s and YA literature welcomes Ciaran Murtagh as its first guest in 2022. Introduced by Joanna Howard (previously of Verbose), the BAFTA-winning children’s author and scriptwriter will be reading from recently published books and answering questions as part of a question and answer session.

In the past decade, Ciaran has published over 50 books including – so far – four titles in the The Fincredible Diary Of Fin Spencer series: Stuntboy, Megastar, Action Hero and Prom King. The first title in the Fincredible series has now been translated into 14 languages and won the Leicester Best Book Award, and prior to that Ciaran won a Riveting Reads Award for Genie in Training.

The BAFTA-winning children’s author and scriptwriter will be reading from recently published books and answering questions as part of a question and answer session.

Ciaran Murtagh has also won a Writers Guild Award and a BAFTA for his TV work – a prolific writer of children’s television, he has written over 500 episodes of everything from Numberblocks to Danger Mouse and PJ Masks, to Shaun The Sheep, Mr Bean and The Amazing World Of Gumball. Ciaran is also in demand as a writer of educational fiction, and you can find his titles in the Treetops, Project X, Big Cat and Rising Stars series of books. He travels the world mentoring children in writing their own stories and speaking about his work, so this is the perfect chance to come armed with questions covering all kinds of angles.

Alongside the pro writer as headliner, a curated selection of unpublished writers will perform on the open mic – performers’ work will span picture books, middle grade (MG), young adult (YA), poetry and more, so expect to hear some diverse emerging voices.

All profits from this event go to BookTrust, a charity that works year-round to encourage children and families to get reading.