AFCC Author Visits
Grab this chance to bring our featured speakers to your schools and classrooms!
Inspire your students with a school visit from award-winning children book authors who are specially in town for AFCC!
Email programmes@bookcouncil.sg for a quotation for school bookings.
Tanya Lloyd Kyi (Canada)
Dates: 22, 23 May 2025 (Thursday, Friday)
Storytelling Goes Green (ages 3-6)
This interactive presentation is based on Tanya's picture books Our Green City, When You Meet a Dragon, and Bompa’s Insect Expedition. Young readers will choose their own green-city jobs, generate forest sound effects, and collectively write their own green story (if a dragon story can be green). Students will leave with new knowledge about the environment and a new understanding of how picture books are created.
Under Pressure (ages 7-12 ; 10-14)
We all experience stress—that sweaty, heart-racing feeling. It’s a natural reaction. But while it may have been useful to our ancestors as they fought off lions in the wild, feeling flustered isn’t always helpful in our modern lives. In this interactive, occasionally silly presentation, Tanya shares stories from her book Under Pressure: The Science of Stress. Students will learn about the origins of stress, wacky historical experiments in the name of research, and—most importantly—practical ways to stress-bust in their everyday lives.
Writing to Change the World (ages 7-12 ; 10-14)
In this fast-paced presentation, Tanya looks at why people decide to pursue unusual goals, what characteristics help them succeed, and how their actions sometimes change the world. Along the way, there's a chance to act out one of the stories, a crime tableau in which the audience serves as jury, and plenty of crowd-sourced sound effects. Students will help decide what wisdom they can take from the world's over-achievers, and brainstorm about the ways we can all work toward embracing opportunities and achieving our dreams.
About Tanya Lloyd Kyi:
Tanya Lloyd Kyi is the author of more than thirty books for children and young adults. Tanya has worked in the past as a graphic designer, an editor and a dishwasher. (She considers herself entirely qualified for that last one.) Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is cheese and her favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time. Tanya teaches at the UBC School of Creative Writing in Vancouver, BC.
Arif Rafhan (Malaysia)
Dates: 23 May 2025 (Friday)
Design Your Own Superhero! (All Ages)
In this fun and inspiring character design workshop, students will get the chance to create their very own superhero—one that reflects their unique personalities, strengths, hopes, and dreams! We kick off with a fun and low-pressure Doodle Ice-Breaker! Students receive a playful doodle template filled with quirky shapes and spaces—then let their creativity flow as they fill every space with imaginative designs and patterns.
Following that, guided step by step, students will:
✔️ Learn the basics of figure drawing
✔️ Infuse their characters with personal traits, values, and creative flair
✔️ Express their ambitions and imagination through design
✔️ Walk away with a superhero that’s an extension of themselves—a powerful, one-of-a-kind creation!
This session not only introduces key drawing skills but also encourages students to dream big and see themselves as the heroes of their own stories.
Create Your Own Comic Strip (Ages 7–12)
Get ready to unleash your storytelling skills—comic-style! In this workshop, students will learn how to craft their very own 3-panel comic strip, using the classic storytelling arc: Introduction, Build-Up, and Punchline. We kick off with a fun and low-pressure Doodle Ice-Breaker! Students receive a playful doodle template filled with quirky shapes and spaces—then let their creativity flow as they fill every space with imaginative designs and patterns.
Following that, guided step by step, students will:
✔️ Discover how to structure a fun, engaging story
✔️ Learn how to combine words and visuals to bring characters to life
✔️ Practice clear, concise storytelling—skills that go beyond comics and can be used in presentations, writing, and more!
✔️ Walk away with a completed comic strip they’ll be proud of!
Perfect for budding storytellers and creative minds, this session turns imagination into action—one panel at a time!
About Arif Rafhan:
Arif Rafhan is a comic artist, illustrator and pre-production artist. His work has been published in more than 20 books to date by MPH, Buku Fixi, Maple Comics, Marshall Cavendish, and Difference Engine. These include comics, content illustrations and cover illustrations. His most recent works include illustrating the comic book series Amazing Ash & Superhero Ah Ma.
Dimity Powell (Australia)
Dates: 19, 20, 21, 23 May 2025 (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday)
SENSATIONAL SHORT STORIES (AGES 7-12)
Allow flash fiction aficionado and microfiction master Dimity Powell to guide you through the branches of bonsai story structures. We’ll uncover the qualities that define a sensationally satisfying yet condensed story from beginning to denouement by getting creative with a (very) limited word count.
CHARACTER CONNECTIONS (AGES 7-12)
Characters are one of the most crucial elements of storytelling yet who are they? Where do they come from? And why do they matter?
Children’s author, Dimity Powell will show you how to connect with characters and how to make readers care about them in this revealing workshop on getting real with those who are unreal!
WORLD BUILDING (AGES 7-12)
Where things happen in a story affects far more than just the setting. Follow master of the universe, Dimity Powell as we forge through new lands, discover new boundaries and create curious new worlds with nothing but our standard issue pens and unfettered imaginations!
ABOUT DIMITY POWELL:
Award winning children's author, Dimity Powell loves filling every spare moment with words. She is the Managing Editor for Kids' Book Review who writes and reviews exclusively for children with over 30 published stories and digital narratives including the award-winning, This is My Dad (2022), At the End of Holyrood Lane (2018) and the critically acclaimed, The Fix-It Man (2017). Several of her titles have been published in simplified Chinese, Polish, Spanish and Slovenian. She believes in the transformative power of storytelling, the restorative power of chocolate ice-cream and superheroes because she lives near one on the Gold Coast, Australia.
Kazumi Wilds (Japan)
Dates: 22, 23 May 2025 (Thursday, Friday)
LET'S MAKE YOUR OWN PICTURE BOOK! - ACCORDION BOOK WORKSHOP (ALL AGES)
Unfold your creativity—literally! In this fun, hands-on session, students will learn how to craft their very own accordion-style picture book, inspired by the workshop that will also be featured at the AFCC conference.
With its unique long, fold-out structure, the accordion book offers endless possibilities. Students will explore how to use the book’s length to bring their stories to life—whether by creating tall and towering illustrations, time-passing sequences, or layered, stacked visuals.
For those ready to take it a step further, we'll teach advanced techniques to extend the paper, making the storytelling canvas even more exciting.
By the end of the workshop, each student will walk away with a personalised, imaginative picture book and new skills in visual storytelling and creative bookmaking!
MINI BOOK MAGIC - MAKE A BOOK FROM A SINGLE SHEET! (ALL AGES)
Who knew a single piece of paper could hold an entire story? In this engaging workshop, students will learn how to transform an ordinary square or rectangular sheet—be it copy paper or drawing paper—into a mini book packed with creativity!
Using simple folding techniques and a single clever cut, they’ll create their own one-of-a-kind mini books. For those looking for an extra challenge, we’ll introduce advanced folding and cutting tricks to design more intricate books with multiple flaps, pages, and hidden surprises.
Perfect for budding writers, illustrators, and young creators, this workshop shows how storytelling can be simple, accessible, and endlessly fun.
ABOUT KAZUMI WILDS:
Kazumi Wilds is a picture book illustrator and a creator of Artist’s books who was born in Tokyo, Japan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in traditional Japanese painting, also an M.F.A. degree in Book Art from a university in the U.S. where she studied Papermaking, Letterpress, and Bookbinding. She has illustrated children’s books published in the US, Japan, and Singapore. She worked as a public schoolteacher for a long time in Japan, and also ran an art gallery in the U.S. and in Japan. She is currently teaching art courses at Temple University Japan Campus in Tokyo.
Holly Thompson (US)
Dates: 20, 21 May 2025 (Tuesday, Wednesday)
TWILIGHT CHANT (AGES 3-6)
Step into the magical world of twilight! In this interactive session, we’ll dive into the text of Twilight Chant—a lyrical exploration of animals coming to life as day turns to night.
Children will discover animals that thrive at dusk, then unleash their imagination by picking their favorite twilight creature. Together, we’ll brainstorm ideas, gather vivid details, and craft a unique poem—either individually or as a class. To make it even more fun, students can add accompanying actions to bring their poems to life! A creative, movement-filled workshop perfect for young minds to explore rhythm, language, and the wonders of the natural world.
SWEET POTATOES AND PUPPETS (AGES 5 AND UP)
Get inspired by Japan’s rich cultural heritage! In this engaging workshop, students will be introduced to two delightful picture books:
- Grow, Grow, Grow, Tome Sweet Potatoes – a story about heritage farming,
- The Puppets are Back – a celebration of a revived form of Japanese puppetry.
After exploring these stories, students will channel their creativity to craft poems centered around local foods, traditional crafts, or cultural arts from their own lives. This session is a wonderful way to connect literature, cultural appreciation, and creative writing—all while encouraging young poets to celebrate their roots.
LISTENING TO TREES (AGES 7 AND UP) WITH HAIKU AND HAIBUN (AGES 8 AND UP)
Journey through nature, craftsmanship, and poetry! We’ll begin by reading Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker, learning about Nakashima’s profound connection to trees and his travels around the world. Inspired by his story, students will explore haibun—a beautiful blend of prose and haiku famously used by the 17th-century poet Bashō to capture moments from his journeys. Students will then try their hand at writing their own haiku or haibun, blending observation, reflection, and creativity. This session nurtures mindful listening, appreciation for nature, and poetic expression—all in one!
ABOUT HOLLY THOMPSON:
Holly Thompson is author of three verse novels for young people: Falling into the Dragon's Mouth; The Language Inside; and Orchards--winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the picture books Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker; The Wakame Gatherers, Twilight Chant and One Wave at a Time. A graduate of the NYU Creative Writing Program and Regional Advisor Emeritus of SCBWI Japan, Holly writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for children, teens and adults; teaches writing at Yokohama City University and UC Berkeley Extension; and visits schools in Japan, the U.S. and places in between.
Visit her at www.hatbooks.com