Scribblers Festival is an annual festival to inspire creative minds. It aims to instil the importance of books and imagination in children's lives and inspire families to weave creativity into the everyday.
The Family Weekend on Saturday 17 September to Sunday 18 September 2022 is a fun-filled celebration of everyday magic, with talks and workshops from award-winning authors and artists from around the country. It is guaranteed to spark the inner wonder in everyone. You won’t want to miss it!
James Foley –
James is an award-winning author and illustrator who wrote his first book at five years old and won his first award for storytelling at 11 years old.
Fifteen years later, he’s still writing and still winning awards for his work.
Stellarphant is James’s eighteenth published book and has just won several awards, including the Honourbook in the Picture book of the year category by the Children’s Council of Australia.
It was recently announced that Stellarphant also won the Children’s Choice Program, voted by 2000 children from around Australia as their favourite picture book of the year.
James is participating in the Scribblers Festival this year to encourage young creatives.
James said, “I want young people to know that if this is your dream, it is very possible here in Perth. There’s a great network here. Keep writing, drawing, telling stories and having fun with it.”
James said Book Week was a great time for authors and illustrators because they were invited to participate in community events to get young kids interested in books.
“This year’s Book Week has been so wonderful for me. I’ve been contacted from parents and teachers around the country sharing photos of children dressing up as
Stellarphant. It’s very heart-warming.”
James has attended Scribblers Festival since its inception. “It’s such a fantastic festival,” he said. “One of Australia’s best.”
“I’m really looking forward to running the joint session with Briony at Regal Theatre. That will be so much fun for those attending, and for us.”
Briony Stewart –
Briony is an award-winning author and illustrator who has been creative since she was very young. She used to immerse herself into the stories she heard and read and imagined how she would alter the narrative. Briony is a WA local, she grew up in the City of Subiaco and even placed second in the Tim Winton Awards for young writers when she was a child. Her creativity has led her to a successful career as a children’s book author and illustrator.
She studied creative writing and fine art at Curtin University and wrote her first book,
Kumiko and the Dragon straight out of university. Since then, she’s written and illustrated books for both young children and young adults. Briony is currently working on her twentieth book.
When it comes to writing or illustrating, Briony says she can’t pick a favourite between her two passions because they’re both so different. “I love writing and creating the story and I love the challenge of illustrating for others too because it’s often something I would not write myself.”
Briony is looking forward to participating in her first Scribblers Festival in the City of Subiaco in September.
“There will be a workshop on the family day for children aged two to six, where they can build their very own Magoo. I think that will be great.”
“I’m also really looking forward to working with James Foley, he’s a very good friend of mine, and we’ve never run a session together before. There’s also an illustrator battle later that day, which I plan on winning. We have very different creative processes, so it’ll be interesting for everyone involved to see what we create.”
James and Briony will be running and participating in workshops on Sunday 18 September as part of Scribblers Festival. You can download the program for the family weekend at
Scribblersfestival.com.au