Author: Sue

Empathy Festival 2025

This year’s Empathy Day has extended to a ten-day nationwide festival from 2-12 June 2025! Which culminates in Empathy Day itself on 12 June.

As a part of this, I was asked to create an Emotions Map to help children explore their own and others’ feelings – what a fantastic idea! I took this map on tour with me to China and the kids were so captivated and inspired to make their own.

If you’re a school, library, bookshop or home setting that would like to join in, you can register for your FREE activites and resources here at the Empathy Lab website.

China tour

My first overseas author trip took me to Beijing and Shanghai, thanks to organisers Authors Abroad. Even though my itinerary (plus jet lag) was bonkers, the vibe was cool and the people were the most welcoming you could ever meet.

In between sessions, I had free rein of art depts, browsed books, chatted with loads of interesting folk, and even squeezed in a geeky Maglev ride. Oh yeah, and I scoffed loads of real deal Chinese grub – bonus! Outside school time, I was also invited to delicious dumpling suppers, walked the Beijing hutongs and met with online friends for the first time in real life.

Massive thanks to everyone, especially all the brilliantly funny and creative kids I had at my events. What an adventure!

Happy World Book Day!

I spent the day at Francis Holland school chatting to years 7 and 8. I did a careers talk with the 6th formers too, about how going into writing can be approached from multiple and sometimes surprising angles. I used to think you needed a fancy degree or training but really you just need to be a storyteller (and have a lot of patience for learning all the technical bits of putting a book together!)

I’ve not done the ‘Chinglish’ talk for a while cos I’ve been busy writing the sequel, but it was interesting to see how my perspective changes on it every year. I’ve got a lot more compassion for my teen self now and focus more on the positives and what today’s young people can take from them.

Thanks as always to the schools that keep inviting me to visit.

Happy 10th birthday Empathy Lab!

Empathy Lab is made up of exceptional souls, and I got to meet a bunch of them at the party in grand Artworkers’ Guild, London, including the new MD taking over Miranda’s job, Imogen Bond (here with author/artist Jion Sheibani above!)

There’s a billion reasons why ELab are ace and one of the main ones is that they do serious science behind empathy and are on a mission to teach the skills to our next generations through reading.

At the moment there’s around 250 children’s authors and illustrators involved and the message reaches up to a million kids. So if you’re a teacher, librarian, children’s book creator, check out their training courses and get on board (they’re aiming for 2 million kids next year!)

DBA 5 year celebration

Last night at Waterstones Piccadilly, with a bunch of Diverse Book Awards winners to celebrate 5 years of the event. We spoke to an audience about our book themes, influences, work processes and how to cope with perpetual writers’ angst (solutions ranged from drinking copious amount of booze to using the cat as a stress ball – ideally not at same time).

Pictured here are: Marie-Claire Amuah, Nathanael Lessore, Jenny Ireland, Kia Abduallah, me, Naomi Jones, Abiola Bello and Rashmi Sirdeshpande. Shout out to legends, hosts/founders Abiola and Helen, and all the bookstore staff.

Online workshops available

The great thing about online is there’s no end of people who can join the party. Matt, the organising librarian for today’s Leeds primary school sessions told me:

“It by far had the most interaction from the children watching than any of the other webinars we’ve delivered. I counted 56 class log-ins so that’s about 1700 people watching! Amazing!”

My ‘HOW TO…’ Maddy Yip workshops are fast-paced draw-alongs designed to get those creative juices flowing. If your school is interested in a 1hr KS2 inc. Q&A online workshop, get in touch via the contact form on this website.
Ps. You don’t need to be good at drawing, just use your bonce!

Diverse Book Awards winners’ panel

I’ll be joining past winners for an evening of inspiration on 23rd January 2025 as Diverse Book Awards celebrate 5 years. The evening will be hosted by co-founders of one of the UK’s leading book prizes, Abiola Bello and Helen Lewis.

We’ll talk about our latest projects, insights and the  transformative power of diverse stories over the past five years. Don’t miss this celebration of literature that challenges, empowers, and inspires!

Tickets are available here. 

From order pads to manuscripts

2 Chinese takeaway kids, 2 very different futures! We both started off behind the woks and counter, me in The Midlands 70s/80s and Patrick in Northern Ireland 80s/90s.

Now I’m a kids’ author/illustrator and Patrick Tsang is an international investor/philanthropist. But when we met to do a book swap, we found we had much more in common than we thought from our shared experiences in the family kitchens.

These Rights Are Your Rights – LAUNCH DAY

‘These Rights Are Your Rights’ officially goes free range today and we managed to get the whole team together at the publishers to celebrate!

A massive heap of thanks go to Amnesty and Andersen Press for asking me to be PROUD illustrator for this important project. I would absolutely love it if every kid in the world got a copy of this. ‘Cause unfortunately, not everyone knows that whoever and wherever they are, they have an equal right to the best possible childhood.

You can buy ‘These Rights Are Your Rights’ here. Please share far and wide to create next generations with BIG 💗💗💗

Laugh Out Loud Awards – SHORTLISTED

The announcement that ‘Maddy Yip’s Guide to Holidays’ was shortlisted for Lollies Book Awards 2024 was made while I was actually on MY holiday – so I treated myself to an extra flake in my 99.

This is so much more than about being chosen for an award. It means that all that time spent crafting words and sentences to make them funny actually worked, and that I am making kids laugh, which is pure magic. Thanks to everyone at Lollies, and all the kids that’ll be judging. Enjoy the lols!