AFTER an incredibly successful debut in 2018, Dubray StoryFest will be back again this year at Dublin’s Airfield Estate on Saturday, September 28.
With over 25 hugely talented children’s authors and illustrators coming from all over Ireland and the UK, StoryFest 2019 will be a day of interactive author shows and storytelling.
There will also be an illustrator’s corner, art and craft activities, family music workshops, treasure trails and face-painting, along with a relaxed zone for children with special needs.
StoryFest will run from 11am-5pm, with simultaneous events for different ages and interests taking place in sites across Airfield's urban farm and gardens.
This unique, fun-filled, creative festival for children aged 0-12 and their families, will be held rain or shine, so if you like stories, it’s the place to be!
This will be a day of interactive author and illustrator events, storytelling and story-writing, doodling, drawing, art and craft, face-painting, dressing up, events as Gaeilge and, for children with ASD or special needs in a relaxed zone.
There will be opportunities to meet Sarah McIntyre and Philip Reeve for Roly-Poly Flying Pony Tales, you can join Alex T Smith for Claude and Mr Penguin stories, and hear Irish bestsellers Marita Conlon-Mckenna and Judi Curtin talk about bringing history alive and shake hands with the Gruffalo from Julia Donaldson’s beloved picture books.
You may get star-struck by meeting Norah Patten who is set to become Ireland’s first citizen science astronaut, as she launches her first book about space, and partake in a special President’s Tea Party with Peter Donnelly, author of the bestselling the President’s Glasses and the President’s Cat.
You can meet Chris Judge and his new world of Teeny and Tiny, draw with the Hugglewugs creator , former Laureate na Nóg, Niamh Sharkey, and doodle (and laugh) with Alan Nolan.
Family ticket are €35 (for two adults, and two kids, adult €15, kids €10, OAP/ student €12.
For tickets and more information see www.dubraybooks.ie/storyfest
Meanwhile, UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has launched the 2019 Red Line Book Festival with a special poetry reading at Rua Red, Tallaght.
The Festival will run from October 7 – 13 in venues across South County Dublin, with more then 40 events taking place.
This year’s exciting programme will bring together some of the greats of the literary world, as well as an array of exciting new voices.
Some of those in the line-up include Irish Laureate for Fiction, Sebastian Barry, Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan, Kevin Barry, Sarah Webb, Alison Spittle, Joseph O’Connor, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Colm O’Regan and Laura Dodsworth.
An initiative of South Dublin Libraries and Arts, the Red Line Book Festival brings local, national and international authors, alongside talks, workshops, theatrical productions and creative writing competitions, to venues across South Dublin each October.