The children and young people of Wales and beyond should identify with the books they read andsee families and situations that are like their own lives portrayed in an authentic and sincere way.

Join us for a panel discussion which centres around the theme of storytelling and stereotypes. Understand how to acknowledge, subvert, and dismiss stereotypes, or where relevant use them as a narrative tool. This free webinar will include a 1-hour discussion followed by a 30-minute Q&A.

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_k4x52PZ8RjOjuyvKUbsCUg

Speakers

Aoife Dooley

Aoife Dooley is an award-winning illustrator author and comedian. She is also a graphic designer and public speaker. She is best known for her ‘Your One Nikita’ series which follows the life of a 22-year-old woman and her friends from Coolock. She published two books with Gill Books based on Nikita in 2016 and 2017 ‘How To Be Massive’ and ‘How To Deal With Poxes’. In 2018 ‘Your One Nikita’ came to screens in an animated tv series for the RTE Player animated and produced by Digital Beast. She has spoken at a number of events including Offset, Zeminar, Creative Events and more. She was a regular panellist on the Elaine show on Virgin Media and has experience with both live tv and radio. Aoife has also performed at festivals such as Vodafone Comedy Festival, Body & Soul, Electric Picnic and more. In 2017 she won U Magazines 30 under 30 award for best comedian.

In 2018 Aoife was diagnosed as Autistic at the age of 27. Since, she has spoken about her own experiences at many events which have resonated deeply with audiences. She has shared how a diagnosis helped her to truly begin to understand herself and has created comics and diagrams around the subject of what Autism is to her.

Aoife published her first Children’s book in 2019, ‘123 Ireland’ with Little Island books which won Specsavers Children’s book of the year at the An Post book awards. Little Island announced they are working on another book with Aoife, ‘ABC Ireland’, which will be published in 2022.

In 2020 Scholastic UK acquired world rights to Frankie’s World, a graphic novel based on Aoife’s real-life experiences of autism. It was published January 2022 and with praise from The Guardian, the Irish Times amongst others went to reprint after a month of its release. ‘Frankie’s World’ is being published by Graphix Books and will be coming to stores across the US in August 2022.

Lee Newbery

Lee Newbery is the author of The Last Firefox, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and its recently released sequel, The First Shadowdragon. He lives in south Wales with his husband and their son, and has very recently become a full-time writer – something he’s dreamt of doing since he was a teenager. He loves writing magical adventure books that are inclusive and diverse, but not issue-led. Oh, and there’s always a dollop of Welshness in them, too!

Sue Cheung

Sue Cheung is a British-Chinese author/illustrator. Born in the Midlands, to parents who ran a restaurant, she spent her early years devouring copies of Beano and Dandy and dreaming of creating her own comics. At the age of 16 she seized her chance to become an artist by winning a scholarship to the London College of Fashion through a competition in Mizz magazine for teenage girls. Later she ventured into advertising and worked her way up to Art Director. Sue now freelances as a designer from her home in Dorset, where she also writes and illustrates books for young people of all ages, including award-winning YA novel Chinglish and the illustrated Maddy Yip series.