Children's Writing Fellow
Above: Shirley-Anne McMillan
The Children's Writing Fellowship was created as part of Queen’s University and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's (ACNI) joint ten-year Seamus Heaney Legacy project supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies. Fellows are selected by an expert panel, to be based at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s for two years, working with students and engaged in outreach activities.
Paul Howard (2021-23)
Paul Howard is an award-winning children’s author and illustrator, best known for illustrating Jill Tomlinson’s classic The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark and The Burpee Bears, a new picture book series from Joe Wicks. He has collaborated with some of the greats of children’s literature such as Allan Ahlberg, Michael Rosen, Anne Fine, Trish Cooke, Martin Waddell and John Boyne, and won numerous awards including a Blue Peter Award for The Bravest Ever Bear and The Primary English Award for The Year in the City. He publishes his own young fiction and picture books, most recently 1,2, BOO! for Bloomsbury.
Kelly McCaughrain (2019-21)
Kelly McCaughrain is a Young Adult writer from Belfast. She studied Creative Writing at Queen’s and mentors young writers at Fighting Words. Her first novel, Flying Tips for Flightless Birds, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and won the Children's Books Ireland Eilis Dillon Award, Children's Choice Award and Book of the Year Award 2019, and also won the Northern Ireland Book Award 2019.
Myra Zepf (2017-19)
Myra Zepf is the first ever Children's Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland. Her picture book Don't Go to School!, first published in Irish, was nominated for the Children's Book of the Year in Ireland. She has also written historical fiction – Tubaiste ar an Titanic and Lá Leis na Lochlannaigh. She was three times nominated for the Reics Carló Book of the Year Award.