Pathways into Children’s Publishing

Pathways Into Children’s Publishing is a ground-breaking, two-year illustration course for talented and aspiring artists from backgrounds that are under-represented in children’s publishing. The programme is tutored and mentored by 100+ children’s illustrators, editors, art directors and leading lecturers from 25 affiliated publishers and universities.

The team at Floris Books is delighted to be supporting Pathways Into Children’s Publishing as a publisher affiliate and we’re looking forward to sharing our expertise and nurturing illustrators in Scotland as well as all over the UK from our base in Edinburgh.

However, in order to devote the required time and resource to this project, we are pausing the Kelpies Prize for Illustration for 2023.

One of our aims for the Kelpies Prizes is to encourage entries from diverse backgrounds. By participating in the Pathways programme we will be part of a professional team of 26 affiliates mentoring 42 illustrators who have all met the Pathways diversity criteria. Five of the illustrators are based in Scotland.

Of the 42 mentees:

• 75% are artists of colour
• 14% are disabled
• 30% are neurodivergent

Some identify in more than one category.

We look forward to developing our own knowledge and experience of working with artists from under-represented groups and bringing those learnings back to incorporate into the Kelpies Prize for Illustration in the future.

Pathways is produced and presented by Pop Up Projects CIC, a non-profit social enterprise with a mission to transform lives through literature and publishing.

To find out more about Pathways into Children’s Publishing, visit their website, or follow @pathwaysinto on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also keep an eye on our @DiscoverKelpies social media feeds for details of how the project is progressing.