The South Asian Illustration and Literature Festival is returning for its second year and will take place at Tate Britain on 27 September, 2025.  We were delighted to catch up with its pioneering co-founders Sinead Gosai, Chitra Soundar and Sanchita Basu De Sarkar to discuss the event.  Don’t miss your opportunity to book tickets and to be part of this hugely exciting and important festival.

Congratulations on the second year of SAILfest, when and where will this year's festival be held and who's able to attend this and how please? 

SINEAD: For our second year, we’re proud to be working with Tate Publishing, where we’ll host SAIL Fest in the Clore Auditorium at Tate Britain on Saturday 27th September. Everyone is welcome, regardless of your heritage - as long as you have an interest in children’s publishing. We have a number of ticket options to suit all budgets and we’d love as many authors, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, editors, agents etc to come along and join the conversation on the day - either in person or virtually. 

Can you tell us a bit about the background to SAILfest?

SINEAD: Sanchita Basu De Sarkar came up with the idea and initially approached Chitra and me to get involved. It’s something we’d all been separately having conversations about and we just decided to get together and get stuck in. It was honestly quite crazy looking back at how quickly we managed to pull it all together. We’re all really passionate about uplifting and championing our community and set out to create a safe space to do that in. 

SAILfest have been doing some fantastic work since last year's inaugural festival, what have been some of the highlights for you and why?

SINEAD: The buzz and excitement from the first festival has been tough to beat, but we’ve continued to run small scale events throughout the year - we hosted a networking event towards the end of last year, as that was something a lot of attendees were keen on continuing to make connections in person and online and earlier this year we ran our first online book launch and virtual networking event. I think the highlight truly was seeing the impact and how much having that space to get together and have honest conversations and celebrate our successes and joys together really meant. 

What are some of the highlights on this year's programme and what can attendees expect if attending?

SINEAD: We have a brilliant line up this year, exploring the barriers and possibilities in publishing. We have a debut panel, a panel exploring how to sustain a career in the industry and a panel talking about how to publicise and amplify our voices. We also have some interactive creative sessions, a book launch and a networking evening. So it’s a pretty jammed packed day. Book your SAILFest tickets here - https://www.sailfest.org.uk/sailfest2025 

This year, we’re also so excited to be partnering with The Barbican to host a special SAIL Fest family film club event for the public, so bring your little readers along. You can register and book your tickets here.
 

This year's festival is in collaboration with Tate publishing, how did that partnership come about and what value does it add?

CHITRA: Tate’s senior commissioning Editor Cherise Lopes-Baker had been on a panel at our first festival and she was instrumental in championing the festival with her publishing team and brought us together and we’re delighted to be able to collaborate on this year’s festival. The space allows us to open our doors to even more delegates this year. It’s heartening to work with a publisher who is keen to support our mission to uplift those of South Asian heritage working across the kid lit space. 

With the decline in publications reported through Reflecting Realities and the closing of Tiny Owl publishers it feels like we're entering a potentially more challenging time for diverse and inclusive publishing.  How important is it that librarians are part of the conversations and what role are they able to play in the industry?

SANCHITA: It is increasingly concerning and something we’re saddened to see. Librarians can be some of the most powerful advocates for inclusive publishing, not only as gatekeepers of what gets into readers' hands, but also as trusted voices in shaping demand and influencing systemic change. This can be such a huge asset to publishers. When librarians are intentionally stocking and promoting our books, it lets publishers know there's an audience for our stories. 

CHITRA: Libraries are the beating heart of any community and having your local library advocate for you as an author can be so powerful because they open the author and the book to a wider audience - not just teachers and students but for the wider community. Librarians keep a diverse range of books visible and celebrated with communities on the ground. And through PLR, borrowing trends and library highlights, they are able to advocate for inclusive books with data and evidence. 

ALL: Don’t forget! Book your tickets to SAIL Fest 2025 here. 

A big thank you to Sinead Gosai, Chitra Soundar and Sanchita Basu De Sarkar

With nominations currently still open for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals (nominate by clicking here), we talk with 2019 winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, Jackie Morris about her work, the impact winning has had upon her and the extraordinary book that she and Robert MacFarlane created.

Kate Greenaway winner, ‘The Lost Words’ initially began as a chat with Emily Drabble about producing  a web slideshow of images to highlight words that had been dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.  The words had fallen from common use and so were no included in the dictionary whose purpose OUP described as being ‘to reflect language as it is used, rather than seeking to prescribe certain words or word usages.’

Recognising the importance of the natural world, several authors, naturalists and broadcasters signed a letter composed by Laurence Rose, conservationist and editor of the Natural Light blog.  The letter cited the National Trust’s ‘Natural Childhood’ campaign stating

‘Every child should have the right to connect with nature.  To go exploring, sploshing, climbing, and rolling in the outdoors, creating memories that’ll last a lifetime.’

Among those who signed the letter were Margaret Atwood, Nicola Davies, Robert MacFarlane, Michael Morpurgo, Sir Andrew Motion and Jackie Morris.  Talking about the removal of the words, Jackie says ‘it highlighted the disconnect between language and nature and was a clear indication that something was wrong.’

Fearing that a slideshow of images would be there and then, like the words in the dictionary, disappear, Jackie began to think about a book and decided to write to co-signatory, Robert MacFarlane to see whether he might be willing to pen an introduction.  When the reply came back a couple of weeks later, the suggestion was to collaborate on something more than just an introduction.

‘We started knocking the idea back and forth between the two of us.’  Jackie was clear that she didn’t want children to be in it and wanted it to be wild.  ‘The idea of spells clicked in his mind.  The first one he wrote was the kingfisher and I painted it against a background of goldleaf’.  Taking it to the Hamish Hamilton offices, was the first  time Jackie met with Robert and she didn’t meet him again until the project was finished.  ‘Everything was done via e-mail, I’d send sketches, he would send spells to be spoken aloud.  It was the most collaborative piece of work of all of the things I’ve done.’

Jackie did not create roughs for any of the illustrations, submitting the artwork in batches.  Part of the collaborative process involved the work of designer Alison O’Toole.  Jackie describes finding ‘The Lost Words’ font as having been key, ‘I was conscious about legibility, but something about the space given to the words means that reluctant readers aren’t intimidated.  We’ve had feedback about how well reluctant readers have responded and how they love it and are not put off by the complexity of language because of the relationship with the pictures.’

Hamish Hamilton were extremely trusting and have supported the crowd-funding ideas where copies of the book have been gifted to local .  The book has caught the public imagination in an inspiring way.  The dynamism of the relationship between written and pictorial language has acted as a catalyst enabling creative responses that have crossed a variety of artistic boundaries with folk songs, exhibitions and even a performance at the 2019 proms.   

Talking about this year’s Kate Greenaway win, Jackie explains the impact it has had upon her career.  ‘After twenty-eight years working in children’s books, I have a big backlist.  For the first time ever there is a plan of my work being taken to Frankfurt Book Fair.’  Her Canadian publisher was also very excited on hearing the news.  ‘My work now has a connection with other books that have won and which I love.  It has given me a new confidence.’