Paul Howard
Paul Howard is an award-winning children’s author and illustrator, best known for illustrating Jill Tomlinson’s classic The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark and The Burpee Bears, a new picture book series from Joe Wicks. He has collaborated with some of the greats of children’s literature such as Allan Ahlberg, Michael Rosen, Anne Fine, Trish Cooke, Martin Waddell and John Boyne, and won numerous awards including a Blue Peter Award for The Bravest Ever Bear and The Primary English Award for The Year in the City. He publishes his own young fiction and picture books, most recently 1,2, BOO! for Bloomsbury.
With his decades of experience as an author and illustrator of children’s books, Paul knows exactly how to connect with young people in the classroom and beyond, firing their imaginations and encouraging them in their own reading and writing. Catherine Heaney
Speaking of Paul Howard, current Children's Writing Fellow NI
During his Fellowship, Paul committed to making literature accessible to young people across Northern Ireland, and encouraged young people to tell their own stories through words or pictures. As an illustrator, he is passionate about visual literacy as a way in to books for less confident readers, and how images bring a new dimension to the worlds we find when we read. During his tenure Paul facilitated workshops for thousands of children across Northern Ireland.
Talking about his aims, Paul said: "As an illustrator, I aim to bring a new dimension to the role through promoting visual literacy as an alternative, accessible gateway for students and children of all literacy levels to engage in, building enough confidence in them to read and create their own stories.
The fellowship will also enable me to take my story-building workshops to schools, which, for whatever reason, have never experienced an author or illustrator visit before, endeavour to seek creative inspiration outside of the classroom and shine a light on the incredibly rich heritage of children's literature we have here."