St Austell Festival of Childrens Literature.

I had a wonderful couple of days down in Cornwall at the St Austell Festival of Childrens Literature. 

On Friday I visited Newquay Junior Academy where the kids & staff gave me a lovely welcome (& I also met their lovely school dog Nelly!)

(my drawing of Nelly the dog, a talking cat, a seagull with its bag of chips & a dog eating a sausage)

During the event I talked to the kids about how I became an illustrator (via roadying for bands among other things!)  & introduced our graphic novel Poo Crew Adventures: Journey to Poo-topia, a fast-paced adventure, which brings together clever, funny storytelling with lots of amazing facts and taps into kids’ fascination with all things poo-related & I PROVED that poo is THE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT IN THE WORLD!

We also had a game of ‘Poo or True?’

A draw-a-long of the book’s protagonist Ploppy with some great drawings from the kids!

I also gave a behind the scenes look at what goes into illustrating a narrative non-fiction graphic novel, answered some great questions from the children & signed LOTS of books.

On Saturday I took part in The Big Draw Off - A Graphic Novel Showdown Like No Other! with author illustrator Steve Webb which was brilliantly compered by JoJo Silva from Capital Xtra.

We both talked about our work & then were set various drawing challenges getting prompts from audience members & also creating characters based on audience members with hilarious results - a really fun interactive event (& not often you get to shout 'poo!' in a church!)

Big thanks to everyone involved to make it such a brilliant festival! I hope I'll get invited back!

If you'd like me to visit your school or your festival please contact me on info@stevemay,biz

 (in training for The Big Draw Off)

(A pictorial Steve (May) & Steve (Webb) in the beautiful Holy Trinity Church, St Austell)

(The two Steves & JoJo our compère)

Goldrush - Steve May creates comedy gold in a collaboration with Tom Mitchell

I had great fun visiting the Wild West in my recent collaboration with author Tom Mitchell Goldrush which is published by Big Cat Publishing. 

There's lots of humour in the text which was a delight to bring to life as I imagined what the characters would look like. I also got to draw donkeys, horses, rattlesnakes & bears (which is very nearly a quote from the Wizard of Oz! ; )

'Illustrated fiction, especially that with a comedic twist has reached increasingly elevated heights in terms of both popularity and visibility due to its benefits in encouraging reluctant readers to explore storytelling.

The insight and expertise of publishing houses such as Big Cat Publishing and Barrington Stoke have been trailblazers in terms of developing the perfect balance of text and illustration. So grab your lasso and buckle up because we thrilled to celebrate the publication of Gold Rush, written by Tom Mitchell and illustrated by illustrator, animator, and master of pen and ink, Steve May.

Gold Rush features a bright, engaging cover illustration as well as a host of entertaining internal illustrations, starring feisty and brilliantly entertaining Lily O’Connor and her gnarly gold prospector father. We know emerging readers are going to be drawn to Steve’s illustrations as the story unfolds and there are lots of fun details to spot along the way.'

More on my agent Arena's website