Children's Laureate Joseph Coelho has recently been honoured as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours. The performance poet, playwright, and children’s author, who grew up in Roehampton, south-west London, has been recognized for his services to the arts, children’s reading, and literature.
Joseph Coelho will be joining the Newark Book Festival this year, bringing his celebrated work and passion for words to the event, delivering two poetry workshop events across the four-days.
Tickets are available for Joseph's Kids VS Adults Poetry Workshop at Inspire Butternarket. Tickets are only £2 and the event is suitable for children aged 7-11 years and their grown ups.
Having had a love of poetry since childhood, Coelho studied archaeology at University College London while continuing to write. In 2014, his debut poetry collection, Werewolf Club Rules, was published, winning the CLPE CLiPPA Poetry Award the following year.
His works include the Luna Loves… picture books, the dark series Fairy Tales Gone Bad which re-imagine the classics, and the young adult novel The Girl Who Became A Tree. Coelho has also released a range of lyrical children’s stories and poetry collections such as Overheard In A Tower Block, If All the World Were…, and Poems Aloud.
In 2022, he was announced as the 12th Children’s Laureate, with his tenure concluding this year. During his acceptance, Coelho highlighted the need for diversity in book publishing and aimed to use his laureateship to celebrate new voices, giving "every young person an opportunity to see themselves as a writer."
Sir Quentin Blake, Sir Michael Morpurgo, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, and Julia Donaldson are also among those who have been Children’s Laureate.
Michael Rosen will also be joining Newark Book Festival this year for an afternoon event at Palace Theatre on Thursday 11th July, with his latest publication and non-fiction book, The Missing.
Coelho recently contributed to the anthology Happy Here: 10 Stories From Black British Authors and Illustrators and released the lyrical picture book My Beautiful Voice. His 2022 book The Boy Lost In The Maze, which draws on ancient Greek myths, is shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for writing.
Earlier this year, Coelho joined other children’s laureates in backing a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, demanding funding for books and encouraging reading for the under-sevens. The letter, part of a campaign by the BookTrust, emphasized that the cost-of-living crisis was “tipping more families into poverty” and stressed the importance of recognising that children who read regularly are more likely to overcome disadvantage. It also called for long-term national investment to ensure low-income families get the support they need.