Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys share with upper-primary students how a conversation around a dinner table became their latest book, All the Ways To Be Smart – and all the steps in between. With writing tips to behind-the-scenes sneak peeks at the illustrator’s process, this lively session will inspire and delight.
Davina Bell is a writer from Western Australia. She is the author of the award-winning picture book The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade, which won the 2016 Australian Book Industry Award for Best Children’s Book from a Small Publisher, and Under the Love Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the same award in 2018, and All the Ways to Be Smart. She is also author of the ‘Alice' books in the best-selling Our Australian Girl series. For six years she was a Senior Editor at Penguin Books in the Young Readers Division, where she worked with some of our country’s most beloved children’s book creators. Davina lives and works in Melbourne, where she still dreams about the Western Australian beaches while drinking a lot of very good Melbourne coffee.
Allison Colpoys is an award-winning designer and illustrator, and the Associate Art Director at Scribe Publications. Her picture books include The Underwater Fancy-dress Parade, Under the Love Umbrella, If All the World Were... and All the Ways To Be Smart. As well as receiving numerous Australian Book Design Awards for her illustration and cover design, she has won the CBCA Crichton Award for Best New Talent and an Australian Book Industry Award. As a freelancer, Allison is represented by the Jacky Winter Group.
