Libraries and schools need free author visits, so I set up YA Shot

Cuts to library funding in schools and community mean author visits are a luxury that only some can afford, that’s why author Alexia Casale founded the YA Shot festival and programme to partner libraries and schools for author visits – here’s how your library system can apply to be part of YA Shot

Alexia Casale
Alexia Casale: We want all kids and young people to know that there are books and stories out there for them Photograph: PR

Want to know what it’s like to be an author? Want to know more about how to get published and where ideas come from? Want to support your local libraries and see schools across your area get a chance to meet top authors from around the country?

From Monday 25 January, your library system can apply to be part of a free programme that partners local libraries and schools for visits by young adult and children’s authors. Each year, the scheme goes to a different area of the country, whether that’s a London borough, another city or an area like ‘South Bucks’. If you want to see the scheme happen in your area, please go to your local library and tell them about it and encourage them to get their “library system” (ie the local group of libraries they’re part of for government purposes) to apply. You can help even more by writing a few sentences for your library about why you’d love your school and local library to be part of the programme.

Last year a group of young adult and children’s authors got together and said “We need to help our libraries, and we need to make sure that even schools that can’t afford to pay us to visit can give students opportunities to meet authors.” So we set up a literary festival with a difference. YA Shot is a whole day of events (talks, workshops, signings) with around 70 authors from around the country. YA Shot 2016 will be held in Uxbridge (London) on Saturday 22 October. The money from ticket-sales will pay for the libraries-schools programme. (BTW, if you live anywhere near Uxbridge, do tell your parents and school about the festival! It’s a fab day with tons of top authors, bloggers & vloggers. All-day tickets are £15 for under-18s and £20 for adults.)

About half of the festival’s authors are part of the libraries-schools programme. Each author in the programme does a free event for a different local library working in partnership with a local school: the library hosts the event and the school brings in whichever class or year-group it chooses. We do it this way to help libraries by reminding everyone what brilliant places they are and why we mustn’t let the government close them down. At the same time, we want all kids and young people to know that there are books and stories out there for them – and that anyone can be a writer if that’s what they want.

When you ask your library to apply for the YA Shot libraries-schools programme, make sure to tell them it’ll only take about two hours. All they have to do is say why their area needs the programme and which local libraries will work with which local schools (and give the name of a teacher and librarian for each partnership so we can organise everything). It’s that simple. The deadline for the 2016/2017 Programme is 1 April 2016.

There are guidance notes and a short application form on our website on the “Libraries-Schools Programme” page: www.yashot.co.uk. You can find us on Twitter on the #YAShot and #YAShot2016 hashtags.

If you school or library book group isn’t a member of the Guardian children’s books site then here’s how to sort it out.
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