hello
Ed Vere is an award winning and New York Times bestselling writer & illustrator of picture books. He is the artist in residence at the Born Free Foundation.
His latest book 'How to be a Lion' is the winner of Oscar's Book Prize 2019, selected by the children's laureate Lauren Child and a jury including Sarah Brown. It was also selected as one of Amazon.com's best books of 2018 as well as being an NPR great choice for 2018. It is an EB White Read Aloud Honor Book.
'Max the Brave' is a New York Times bestseller and was named one of The Sunday Times's '100 Modern Children's Classics'. It is published in over 15 languages and was followed by 'Max at Night' and 'Max & Bird'.
'The Getaway', his first book, won the Highland Children's Book Award in 2007. The following year, 'Banana' was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway prize. In 2009 'Mr Big' was Booktrust’s official Booktime book, reaching 750,000 British schoolchildren – the largest single print run for a picture book! In the same year, pop-up book 'Chick' won the Booktrust Early Years Award for best baby book.
'Bedtime for Monsters' was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2011 and the next year Ed had the honour of being one of the four Roald Dahl Funny Prize judges, along with Michael Rosen.
Ed also works on many projects related to his books . . . from speaking at festivals from Rio to Mexico to Kerala, to curating festival experiences in the UK, to live drawing onstage at The Barbican Centre alongside the Britten Sinfonia, and at The Wigmore hall with the Neil Cowley Trio. Recently Ed worked with Tiger Aspect to develop an animated TV series and is currently working with the Little Angel Theatre on a production of Mr Big.
Ed worked with CLPE to co-create the Power of Pictures scheme which encourages visual literacy in primary school education and has received major funding from the Arts Council.
Ed lives and works in London.
Just in case that wasn't enough... here's the long version... with links;
Ed Vere
born 1973
Lives and works in London
Books
Ed Vere is an award winning and New York Times bestselling writer & illustrator of picture books which are published all over the world. The Getaway, won the Highland Children's Book Award in 2007. The following year, Banana was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway prize. In 2009 Mr Big was Booktrust’s official Booktime book, reaching 750,000 British schoolchildren– the largest single print run for a picture book! In the same year, pop-up book Chick won the Booktrust EarlyYears Award for best baby book. Bedtime for Monsters was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize in 2011 and the next year Ed had the honour of being one of the four Roald Dahl Funny Prize judges, along with Michael Rosen.
His latest book is the New York Times bestselling 'Max the Brave'. It was named one of The Sunday Times's '100 Modern Children's Classics'. It was also long listed for the Kate Greenaway medal and is published in 12 languages.
'Max the Brave' was followed by 'Max at Night' in September 2015 and 'Max and Bird' publishing in June 2016 with Puffin Books in the UK, and Sourcebooks in the US.
Ed was the official World Book Day illustrator for 2009 and the official illustrator for Hay Fever, Hay Festival in 2009.
Made in Me have produced Bedtime for Monsters, Banana and The Getaway as apps for the iPad with narration by Rik Mayall. Recently Ed worked with Tiger Aspect to develop an animated TV series and is currently working with the Little Angel Theatre developing a puppetry production of Mr Big.
Ed's books have been reviewed in the international news media extensively. His books are also featured in the Book 'Puffin by Design' by Phil Baines.
Events/Schools/Festivals/etc
Ed has worked extensively in schools across the UK and abroad running reading and drawing workshops. He has also been an invited speaker at many literary festivals in the UK and internationally, including;
Hay Festival
Bath Festival
Edinburgh International Book festival
Cuirt International Book Festival, Galway, Ireland.
Guadalajara FIL, Mexico (British Council)
Hay Festival Kerala, India (British Council)
Flupp International literature festival, Rio, Brazil (British Council)
Valletta Festival of Children's Literature, Malta (British Council)
Ed was asked to curate an experience for The 2014 Pop-Up festival (Pop-Up, a literary outreach organisation), which appeared at two venues in London, Swiss Cottage & Thurrock. Ed organised a 'Mr Big plays Jazz' 5 hour marathon of live Jazz, live drawing & storytelling. Children were invited to make their own instruments in a junk orchestra workshop and then join the band on stage for the finale of the concerts.
Ed also worked with Pop-Up to co-create a short film with a school in Hackney in 2013 to be presented to the children of Rio at the Flupp festival in Rio in November 2013. At Flupp, Ed presented the film & ran workshops at the festival and in a local school, alongside several impromptu 4 hour sessions, drawing the children of the favela in the streets with French artist Boulet.
You can read about his experience at FLUPP here.
Ed has performed on stage, live drawing with (amongst others) The Britten Sinfonia and The Neil Cowley Trio for the 'Mr Big plays Jazz' concerts. Selected venues have been; The Barbican Centre (London), Wigmore Hall (London), The Hexagon (Reading), Saffron Hall (Saffron Waldon), Norwich Cathedral and Cuirt International Literary Festival in Galway, Ireland.
Education
Ed studied fine art at Camberwell School of Art, London.
Ed has presented seminars for aspiring writer/illustrators & educators internationally. He co-created, with CLPE, a 10 week course teaching teachers how to teach children creative writing. The course focused heavily on the use of visual literacy as a way to improve literacy and is now being rolled out nationally with other writer/illustrators and funding from the Arts Council.
You can read an article in The Guardian relating to this work here.