Bloomsbury Children’s celebrates authors' ‘wild and wonderful’ stories at annual showcase

Authors including Katherine Rundell, Robert Tregoning and Lesley Parr have spoken about their upcoming books at Bloomsbury Children’s Books’ annual showcase in London.

Held at The Albany on 2nd February, the event was themed around Rundell’s forthcoming superlead autumn title, Impossible Creatures, and hosted by author Sam Sedgman, host of the “Down the Rabbit Hole” podcast and also a superlead author in 2024 with the first book in the Isaac Turner Investigates series, The Clockwork Conspiracy.

Debut author Tregoning and illustrator Stef Murphy spoke about their upcoming title Out of the Blue (February 2023), Colm Field spoke about his book Kyan Green and the Infinity Racers (also February) and Parr shared the story behind Where The River Takes Us, coming in March.

Iszi Lawrence joined from the Bloomsbury Education list to present The Time Machine Next Door, the first in a new series of historical chapter books, out in April, and Lex Croucher presented their new YA title, Gwen and Art are Not in Love (May).

Sufiya Ahmed, Emma Norry and Kalynn Bayron also covered their upcoming books, as did Kate Pankhurst and Atinuke and Kingsley Nebechi and poet Joshua Siegel.

Rundell spoke via video about her “spellbinding” new novel, Impossible Creatures, which will be the first in a trilogy and published in September.

YouTuber and former "Blue Peter" presenter Adam B presented his second book Adam Destroys the Internet and Sibeal Pounder spoke about her upcoming book Sprouts!

Beatrice Cross, head of publicity at Bloomsbury Children’s Books, said: “It has been fantastic to hear from some of our authors and illustrators about where their wild and wonderful stories came from – from historical fiction to colourful autobiographical picture books, to tales of baby griffins and queer medieval YA, 2023 is set to be a spectacular year of stories for Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

“We’re incredibly proud to be publishing all of these books and it has been wonderful to celebrate the year ahead in-person after a couple of virtual years, while still being mindful to capture lots of content for people not able to attend on the evening.”