How to write great picture books

with Johanna Bell

About the workshop

Join award-winning picture book author, Johanna Bell, in this hands-on workshop. Using a mix of text analysis, generative writing, and real-life examples, participants will learn how to craft and paginate a picture book manuscript. Whether you have a seed of an idea, a draft manuscript or a picture book that’s ready to be pitched, this workshop will help you take your work to the next level. Open to authors, illustrators and author-illustrators aged 16+ years.
Johanna Bell is an award-winning children’s author, poet and Churchill Fellow based in Nipaluna / Hobart. Her poems have appeared in Overland, Griffith Review and Australian Poetry, and her children’s fiction is out with Allen & Unwin, UQP, Scholastic and Thames & Hudson.
In 2017, Johanna won CBCA Picture Book of the Year and in 2020, she was shortlisted for a Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her latest books are Digger Digs Down illustrated by Hobart-based Huni Bolliger and Searching for Treasure illustrated by Emma Long. Johanna likes playing with form and writing books that don’t follow the rules.

Johanna was a double winner in the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards for the University of Tasmania Prize for an unpublished manuscript, and the Minister for the Arts Prize for books for young readers and children.