ReadingZone Festival 2017

ReadingZone will be visiting schools in Surrey as part of the ReadingZone Festival 2017, giving more than 3,000 children the chance to meet authors and find out about books and creative writing.

Authors taking part in the festival include comic creator Robin Etherington; Beetle Boy author MG Leonard; writing duo Prentice and Weil; musician Chris Russell; Greek mythology enthusiast Maz Evans, and picture book creator Rob Biddulph. The authors will visit children aged four to 14 years in schools around Dorking, Reigate and Crawley in a week of packed events (31st January to 3rd February). The following authors will be appearing as part of the festival: MAZ EVANS is a journalist, TV critic and feature writer and runs a creative writing programme in schools. Her new children's book, Who Let the Gods Out, sees the Ancient gods and an ordinary boy trying to stop catastrophe on Earth! CHRIS RUSSELL is a writer and musician based in London who has toured the world performing. In a past life he worked as a ghost-writer for a One Direction fan club but has now written his own YA novel, Songs About a Girl. MG LEONARD is a producer, director and actor, and has worked in theatre, including Shakespeare's Globe, for over ten years. She is the senior digital producer for The National Theatre. Beetle Boy was her debut; Beetle Queen is publishing in April. PRENTICE AND WEIL met at school at their A-level English class, and edited the school newspaper together. Since then they have collaborated on a number of projects, including comics, animation and writing dialogue for robots. They now write the Books of Pandemonium series. ROBIN ETHERINGTON started writing stories as a child with his brother, Lorenzo, and their teamwork is behind cartoon series including Malcolm Magic and Monkey Nuts. He now writers the Freaky and Fearless series. ROB BIDDULP, former art director of the Observer Magazine, began writing picture books by making up silly stories for his three daughters and drawing pictures to go with them, but is now a full time picture book creator. His titles include Blown Away and Odd Dog Out. We are grateful for the support of TWM Solicitors and a number of local businesses for making The ReadingZone Festival 2017 possible.