I'm Ed Boxall—an artist, writer, performer, and educator based in Hastings. My own stories, such as Francis The Scaredy Cat and Carried Away with the Carnival, have captured the imaginations of children for many years. Francis The Scaredy Cat was published by Walker Books and featured on the BBC’s Tikkabilla. My poetry collection, Me and My Alien Friend, was praised for its empathy and understanding of children and was a recommended book for the 2019 Summer Reading Challenge. In addition to my own books, I have illustrated stories for a range of children’s authors, such as Brian Moses, Roger Stevens, James Carter, and Vivian French. My work has been published by a variety of leading publishers, including Bloomsbury, Macmillan, Walker Books, Troika, Otter-Barry, and others. I also publish my own titles through my independent press, Pearbox Press. Alongside writing and illustrating, I have performed my stories to thousands of children in schools, libraries, and at festivals. I also run creative workshops that blend storytelling, music, poetry, and art, making each visit a lively and memorable experience. In 2022, I completed storytelling training with The School of Storytelling at Emerson College, which has added a dynamic storytelling to my repertoire. I love sharing my own stories as well as a wide range of tales from different cultures, weaving together music and art to spark imaginations. If you’d like me to visit your school or library, please get in touch below. To give a sense of the range I offer, here are just a couple of examples: • Finding Your Voice Workshop (Poetry Workshop for Key Stage 2): Inspired by the journey to ‘finding your voice’ in The Castle of Um, this workshop invites children to explore both spoken and written expression—experimenting with tone, mood, and meaning through poetry, movement, spoken word games, and performance. I draw on children’s natural ways of expressing themselves through pretend play, using accessible poem scaffolds and playful prompts to give voices to the voiceless—mountains, seas, forests, and clouds. Through this creative play, children discover their own unique voice and learn how ‘voice’ in poetry can create feeling, atmosphere, and meaning. • What If My Nose Could Fly? (Nonsense ‘Fun with Phonics’ Poetry Workshop for Key Stage 1): This lively and inclusive session takes inspiration from The Castle of Um and my story Carried Away with the Carnival. It’s full of music, rhythm, movement, and active participation. Children invent nonsense carnival creatures and characters through drawing and collage, and create new words to describe them, exploring the playful side of language and sound. I provide large print phonic fragments for children to build words and create their own picture-poems, supporting the use of ‘alien words’ in the KS1 curriculum. This workshop can be adapted for KS2, staff training, and is always accessible for SEN groups—because you’re never too old for a bit of nonsense!