Alison is an author who enjoys running imaginative writing and artistic workshops for children and families.
In summer 2025 Alison worked with illustrators, designers and editors in India and England to create a ‘Writing that Sings’ poster-zine.
Workshops and events were run at a summer 2025 book festival in Staffordshire in the centre of England.
New stories and art were commissioned about objects that inspire musical thoughts and actions, including a hand-folded zine printed with vegetable dyes on sustainable paper.
After a musical objects themed assembly for the whole of Beresford School in Staffordshire, where many pupils have additional needs, Alison and former primary school teacher Rachel ran a sound, wordplay and writing workshop. It was noisy and uplifting.
The starting point for the children’s story worlds was a musical object they had brought to school.
At the end of the workshop the children showed and performed their stories, then entertained the visitors with exuberant singing and playing on their mini ukeleles.
Children’s books by Alison Boyle
Alison has created over 70 books and story worlds for children. These include writing fresh adventures for characters like Pingu, Dangermouse, Postman Pat and Bob the Builder, as well as making up her own characters and settings (she sometimes writes under different names.)
Alison has been working on a brand new picturebook for 4 years with a fabulous illustrator. It takes lots of time and care to make a book!
She always works with talented illustrators and designers across the globe to make ideas a reality.
The four books below explore early maths skills through humorous maze, hide-and-seek and spot the difference journeys.
The stars of the stories are: Silly Cat and Ant, Squeak and Penguin, Little Croc and Mum, and Beetle and Bee.
Children at library, bookshop and school events ask questions about what it’s like to be a writer.
Alison visited her old junior school in Preston on World Book Day. Everyone wore a hat.
Alison made another return visit to her junior school in November 2024.
This time, after a whole-school assembly with slides and questions about the role music and objects play in the stories we can tell about our lives, she ran a Key Stage 2 creative writing and drawing session.
The pupils chose a name given at birth to children in Turkey and made lively comic strips stories about their adventures starring a character with the chosen name.
At a high school in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, Alison ran a whole school assembly then visited each year group to talk about the novel she wrote with her dad about factory life.
The story ‘from Pakistan to Preston’ is set at the time of Preston Guild. Pupils painted these tiles to celebrate Preston Guild, which comes round every 20 years.
Alison was interviewed by Radio Lancashire about the book and the way the Urdu language is woven into the conversations between characters.
The story is of two young people who fall in love in spite of cultural differences. It reveals the inner workings of a textile factory and the strong social connections made through football, archery, theatre, and regular parties for workers’ families.
Alison returned to her secondary school in Preston, now a sixth form college, to talk about her writing and publishing life.
The pupils had lots of questions, including the usual one about how much it was possible to earn as a writer.
(Answer: Not very much or a very great deal… both things are true.)
How illustrated storybooks are made
Alison’s books begin with an idea and a main character (although sometimes a catchy title arrives first, which inspires the story).
She makes a paper dummy and a big mess with glue, tape and coloured pens or paints.
Alison illustrates each page with rough doodles that help her work out the main design and any practical conundrums like novelty elements. These dummy versions form the foundation of her collaborations with other artists.
‘How Bees Bee’ and ‘The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish’ are illustrated books published by the Turkish-American publisher Milet.
‘The Dance of the Eagle and the Fish’ started out as a story for adults by the satirical Turkish writer Aziz Nesin. The longer text was translated word for word into English by Ruth Christie. Alison then adapted the story for presentation in a large format picturebook for children.
She dramatised the adventures of the Eagle and the Fish who fall in love with children at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden. She ran dynamic multi-school workshops at Cheltenham Literature Festival too.
An article about ways to dramatise stories with large groups of children was published as a 3-page spread in the Times Literary Supplement. Practical techniques include collaborating on sound and movement, and focusing on dynamics to bring out the drama and emotions of the relationships between characters.
You can find a copy of the book here
"A terrific story… with a timeless quality" (School Librarian magazine).
The book’s illustrator was Istanbul-born Kağan Güner, and for a time the book author and illustrator lived close by. There were plans to produce a second book, but Kağan died in 2011 at the age of 48.
His PhD in modern Turkish art at the School of Oriental and African Studies followed a master’s degree at Chelsea College of Art, with work showcased in Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Paris, Lisbon, Bologna and Bratislava.
Also a UNESCO war artist, the Museum of London collected four of Kağan’s pieces from the London Against War exhibition. The Guardian’s obituary for Kağan Güner was written by the Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan.
Curating a family exhibition
Alison curated a 17-week exhibition and events in the community gallery of the People’s History Museum in Salford, northwest England.
Both of Alison’s grandmas worked as cotton weavers in a mill in Preston. Her parents met while pigmenting artificial silk at a mill just outside the city.
There were films, hands-on textile experiments, talks, an interactive blackboard and audio pod with press-button stories about manufacturing industries in Lancashire.
Lots of people of all ages took part in textile and collage craft as well as discussions about women in science, and four of the events were programmed in the main Manchester Science Festival.
Family events in Liverpool
Creative family events at the Bluecoat arts centre in Liverpool related to ‘The Typing Man’ book and performance. Throughout the day we explored the meaning of Turkish-Arabic names given at birth.
Evergreen story events for families
With support from Moorlands Climate Action, Artificial Silk ran family events at the HUG Green Arts festival 2023.
A global community postcard with an evergreen theme was sent between India and Staffordshire schoolchildren.
A Zoom creative writing workshop brought England closer to Uttar Pradesh and three climate stories were written and audio recorded.
The young British Council India scholar and responsible tourism activist Devasiachan Benny was supported by Artificial Silk to take part in events in Staffordshire. He was interviewed by Moorlands Radio.
About Alison Boyle’s career in children’s publishing
Starting out as a copywriter creating reviews for a global book club magazine, Alison became founding and managing editor of a BBC magazine with a weekly sales of 60,000 copies. She commissioned humorous comic strips from Tony Bradman and others, diverse cultural stories illustrated by Nick Sharratt and others, poems from John Agard, and literacy and numeracy activities for children.
Alison launched online book reviews for Orange and worked as a publisher of print and digital in London, Cambridge, Bath and Oxford (Kar2ouche /UCL).
Her digital research Writing Conventions – What’s new? was awarded a Distinction by the University of Bristol. It explored the use of online social networks for in-depth commentary on fiction and was featured in the University of Winchester’s first e-magazine alongside Michael Rosen.
Alison co-creates her books with illustrators and other industry professionals. She has had the privilege of working with Lydia Monks, Cathy Gale, Graham Percy, Julie Lacome and many other talented people. When she worked with Michael Morpurgo, his illustrated children’s story about Venice and the star of the book (a donkey) appeared live on Channel 4.
She was a consultant on new web content for Michael Rosen’s reading for pleasure campaign, and her writing was published by Hodder in Tony Bradman’s football anthology for children.
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