The Gibraltar Tourist Board are pleased to announce children’s authors Joseph Coelho and Lou Treleaven for the Gibunco Gibraltar Literary Festival.

Joseph Coelho

Joseph Coelho is a best-selling, multi-award winning children’s playwright and author of over 45 books.

His YA verse novel The Boy Lost in The Maze was the winner of the 2024 Carnegie Medal for writing and has received international acclaim appearing on the White Raven Book list - Munich, The IBBY UK Honour Books List and awarded The Extraordinary Book of 2023 by The International Children's Literature Festival of Berlin. Joseph was the Waterstone's Children’s Laureate 2022 - 2024.

Through a reading and an interview-style Q&A, the audience will discover the inspirations behind The Boy Lost In The Maze, a verse novel that intertwines the stories of two boys: Theo - a modern day Londoner and Theseus an ancient Greek Hero. Both are searching for their biological fathers, both are navigating what it means to be a man in worlds where their manhood is tested by villains, monsters and murderers, but is being a man all about brawn? Is there a way to transcend toxic masculinity and to find a new way of being?

Lou Treleaven

Lou Treleaven is the author over 40 books for children including the popular children’s chapter book series Penpals on Pluto, the middle grade series Turns Out I’m an Alien, and 11 picture books. These include The Snowflake Mistake, read on BBC’s CBeebies Bedtime Stories by Suranne Jones, Not Yet a Yeti which was dramatised by Discover Children’s Story Centre in London, and The Christmas Crumb which was turned into an animated short by Dreamscape Publishing in the US. Professor McQuark and the Oojamaflip, Letter to Pluto and Turns Out I’m an Alien were all selected for the Summer Reading Challenge, a reading initiative held annually in UK libraries.

Lou also writes for a guided reading scheme, which she finds the most challenging of all!

In her spare time, she writes plays and adaptations, and is currently co-producing a musical Proposals, for which she has written book and lyrics, based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She lives in Bedfordshire, England, with her family and two rescue cats.

Lou loves reading aloud and encouraging creativity through playful activities. She is looking forward to running workshops about plotting tales with a twist and visiting schools as part of the festival.

The Minister for Tourism, the Hon Christian Santos, said: “Children’s literature is always a highlight of the Festival for audiences young and old, and these events will certainly be of interest to those local authors involved in Gibraltar’s burgeoning children’s literature scene.’

ENDS