Fancy something new for Monty Lit Fest 2025?
How about our first Jill Kibble Monty Mini Fest, the chance to meet some brilliant children’s writers and illustrators – and get your children thinking about stories and writing too.
Join us on Sunday 8 June when we’ve teamed up with award-winning Welsh children’s publisher, Firefly Press, for a Monty Mini Fest in memory of, and inspired by, local legend Jill Kibble.
A wonderful array of authors will take you and your children on amazing journeys: meet exciting sea creatures and learn how to draw them; encounter Gruff and his new friend Mat who are risking everything to save their community from an ancient, magic anger; or Idris, a teenage giant king on a quest to collect stories, as well as Tapper Watson on a quest for the Nemo Machine.
The Mini Fest has something for children of all ages.
The day will begin with a free storytelling session for the under-5s, courtesy of local storytellers. Georgia Dickinson and Cyndy Humphreys.
Lucy Owen, a newsreader for BBC Wales and presenter of X-Ray, and illustrator Rebecca Harry will then be your guides to the magical underwater world of exciting sea creatures in The Sea House (for ages 5-8).
Beatrice Wallbank, will introduce us to Gruff and Mat in The Sleeping Stones, share her inspirations for writing magical stories, and spark ideas for your own next story by thinking about what kind of place it happens in. Will this interactive workshop lead you down a spooky overgrown path or along a wild, stormy beach? You decide! (for ages 8+).
And in the award-winning Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins, Claire Fayers brings Idris, a teenage giant king into our world. Idris is on a quest to collect stories and as he travels across Wales he encounters all manner of legends and myths. Claire will tell us how and why she chose the seventeen adventures, fairy tales and ghost stories that feature in her book. She will also talk about Tapper Watson, an ordinary Erisian boy who loves adventure stories in her book Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine (for ages 8 – 12).
The Mini Fest will take place in The Montgomery Activity Centre on Sunday 8 June from 10.00am-1.30pm. Full details of the programme are available here.
Tickets are just £5.00 for an adult and up to three children. They’re available online, or in person at The Montgomery Bookshop or Ivy House Café in Montgomery.
We look forward to welcoming you.