Catch up on this inspiring Carnegies Webinar featuring the latest Shadowers’ Choice Award-winning creators.
This exclusive online event brings together Nathanael Lessore, Theo Parish, and Tia Fisher, hosted by Jake Hope, to explore the impact of shadowing, the power of storytelling, and the importance of copyright for writers and illustrators today.
Hosted by Jake Hope, this lively conversation with our winners covered:
📖 Nathanael Lessore – 2025 Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Winner for Writing
📖 Theo Parish – 2025 Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Winner for Illustration
📖 Tia Fisher – 2025 Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Winner for Writing
🎤 Jake Hope – Carnegie Awards Executive and children’s reading expert
This is a fantastic opportunity for shadowing groups, educators, and book lovers to hear from award-winning authors and industry experts.
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Nathanael Lessore was born in Camberwell, London, as one of eight children to French and Madagascan parents. Although he has spent most of his life in Peckham, Nathanael has also lived in Paris, Strasbourg and Singapore. His debut book Steady For This was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Writing 2024 and won the Branford Boase Award 2024. His second book King of Nothing won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Readers 2025, the Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Writing 2025 and the Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize 2025. He is also the author of What Happens Online, which was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2025, and Against All Odds, a World Book Day 2026 selection. He writes stories that show his South East London childhood as the funny, warm, adventurous world that wasn’t always represented as such.
Theo Parish is a non-binary author/ illustrator currently living in Norwich with their three cats. Driven by a passion for creating the kinds of stories they longed to see as a kid, Theo’s work is inspired by their love of fantasy and their experiences moving through the world as a queer and neurodivergent person. They can usually be found playing tabletop RPGs, building pillow forts or making friends with the neighbourhood cats.
Tia Fisher won the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal and the UKLA 11-14+ prize for her debut teen verse novel Crossing the Line. Her second verse novel, Not Going to Plan, published in 2025. She spent her youth desperate to escape the boredom of a tiny village in Norfolk, writing poems of love and rebellion and reading indiscriminately through the shelves of the local library. As an adult, Tia had a bewildering variety of jobs – from TV presenter to ESOL teacher to artists’ model – before finding her happy place working in libraries and writing stories. In her fifties she went back to university, and is now the proud owner of a master’s degree in writing for young people. Tia’s website is at tiafisher.com
Jake Hope is the Carnegie Awards Executive, a post which supports CILIP in leading the strategic development of the Awards. Jake is an experienced children’s book and reading development consultant, named as one of the UK’s top librarians of the future in the National Love Libraries Campaign. He has written extensively on children’s reading development and librarianship, contributing chapters to numerous books, producing the SLA publication on diversity and inclusion and previews for The Bookseller. He is the author of the recently published book on visual literacy, Seeing Sense, (Facet Publishing, 2020). Jake enjoys working creatively, has strong network links across the book trade and reading sector and is passionate about children’s books and promoting a love of reading and writing with young people and their families.