News

The Big Issue!
Miriam features in October's special story and poetry issue. Any support for the homeless will be gratefully received if you buy a copy.

New pictures & reviews coming soon
of Miriam's recent school visits in and around Barcelona.

New Books more in the BOOKS section
Matty in a Mess!
Illustrated by Jane Simmons
Andersen Press
Matty is a very orderly bear who lives with his not-so-orderly sister, Milly. But one day when a strong wind turns everything upside down, Matty finds himself in a bit of a mess...
The second Matty and Milly book
Matty Takes Off! ~ now out in paperback.

Delayed publication ....
Billy Bear and the New Baby
Illustrated by Anna Currey
Macmillan
The third Billy Bear story, to go with I Forgot to say I Love you and Bedtime Billy Bear.

Short Story Anthology
Miriam's short story, Looking In,
was a winning story in the 2007 Asham Award and is published in the anthology, Is This What You Want?
Bloomsbury £7.99
ISBN 987-0-7475-8712

Biography

Miriam is an award winning author of more than 75 children's books, both information and fiction. Her fiction includes picture books, novelty books and poetry, and recently short stories for the adult market. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages.

Miriam has had wide experience of working creatively both with children in schools and libraries, and with adults. She offers lively, innovative large group performances, talks, interactive storytelling sessions, readings, seminars, creative writing and poetry workshops.

She was born in England but also grew up in Africa, The Middle East and China. She taught English for eight years in the UK and Kenya before becoming a writer. She now lives in East Sussex.

Event Reviews

School Visits
School Librarian, Benjamin Franklin International School, Barcelona
'I've organized many visits for author-presenters, and Miriam Moss' visit was among the best. She clearly knows how to talk to children and relates to them in a way that is appropriate to their developmental level. Her storytelling sessions included the children as active participants, so they were engaged and came away with a meaningful experience. The teachers and parents were all highly pleased.'

St Philips School, UK
'Reception: very impressed, interacted with the children, pitched well to their level. Year 1: a very good session, really inspired the children. Year 2: the best author visit for a number of years! Used voice really well, drawing them in. Year 3: inspiring, fun and focussed. Lots of positive comments from the children. Year 4: great session, allowed children to be active, created great follow up work. Year 5: Fantastic. Inspiring talk that got the children buzzing. Year 6 : Excellent, pitched perfectly, really interesting session .'

Chynngton School, UK
'I would like to thank you so much for visiting our school this week and playing such a valuable part in our book week celebrations. All the children thoroughly enjoyed the time you spent with them sharing your books, and your obvious love of the written word and the power of storytelling. ...All the teachers were highly impressed with your input, your command of the class and the work that the children did as a result. Thank you again for your hard work and enthusiasm.'

Brighton Festival - 26 Letters
The Complete guide to the Brighton Festival
'Her interaction with the children was perfect. The audience had a fantastic time. A thoroughly enjoyable event for all the family.'

BBC Southern Counties website
'Miriam kept her young audience's attention throughout...This was a slick, well organised presentation by a savvy international author who knew how to keep the kids interested.'

PEN Prison Visits
Librarian, HMP Send
'Miriam gave an extremely amusing and informative talk to an audience of more than forty women. She revealed the inspiration behind many of her stories, as well as offering a fascinating insight into the process by which publishers match up text with illustrations to create a completed picture book. Throughout, she stressed that everyone has the ability to write or tell a story, and finished by entertaining us to a 'bedtime reading'.
After the visit, many of the women commented that they had been inspired to try story writing themselves, and several are intending to record one of Miriam's stories on to tape; copies of the books, together with the tape-recordings, will then be posted out to children in their families.
We are very grateful to Miriam for her commitment and enthusiasm.'

Inmates HMP Send
The talk was really good. Now I feel inspired to write a story of my own for my daughter.'
'I loved hearing how she got the ideas for her books - it got me thinking about what I could write about.'

Inmates HMP Dartmoor
''I thought the way the workshop was delivered was wonderful. I liked the lady's humour and insight.'
' I was very impressed with the workshop and Miriam, and learnt a lot from theexperience.'

Inmates HMP Highdown
'I decided to be more involved in my children's lives and this workshop opened my eyes to what I can do with them.'
' It seemed that she wrote from passion, rather than for money.'

Examples of workshops

Southgate Schools Project
Using The Snoops as inspiration, Miriam worked with two middle and two infant schools. The aims were to forge collaborative creative writing links between Year two and Year six children, culminating in creating a text together. Each child created a character with Miriam, in short bursts of drawing and writing. These characters were developed into families. Each class created one street for them to live in. The result was an entire fictitious neighbourhood where the families could interact. Extension work included writing about events in the street from different perspectives, planning the street furniture and writing stories and diaries about special days in the life of the neighbourhood.

Malcolm Morley Workshops at the Hayward Gallery
Miriam did a series of workshops at The Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre, London in conjunction with The Cross River Partnership. Working with two tutor groups of 11-12 years old from Westminster City School and Charles Edward Brook. Miriam lead a number of creative writing workshops, inspired by the Malcolm Morley retrospective exhibition, which culminated in the production of a CD of the children's work which could be listened to alongside the exhibition. Some of the poetry produced was also used to advertise the exhibition on the underground.