The Rainbow Library is an ambitious project to make more books for children and young people that include LGBTQ+ identities and experiences.

As there are very few LGBTQ+ voices in children’s publishing, and very few LGBTQ+ characters in children’s books, we want to change that. We will do this by publishing a new collection of children’s books called The Rainbow Library in 2023 – the collection will include picture books, short stories or novella, poetry, non-fiction and comics. And we want LGBTQ+ young people to help us do this!

The Rainbow Library project is taking place across the United Kingdom, Ireland and Northern Ireland in eight places: Manchester, Nottingham and Basildon in England; Dumfries and Inverness in Scotland; Belfast and Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland; and Cork in the Republic of Ireland. In every one of these places, over two years, a group of LGBTQ+ young people will:

• Take part in this exciting new course that consists of 8 days of workshops (in person and online) led by children’s authors (with a maximum of 20 participants)
• Develop their own writing and illustration during those workshops
• Be featured in an anthology of the best writing and illustration
• Work with the author or authors, helping them to develop a story of their own – which the author will then go away to work on
• Give critical feedback on the authors’ draft stories – which will be edited and designed into 8 books – with the young people credited as contributors
• Help promote the books by taking part in a local and national campaign to tie-in with Pride
• Come together with all the groups across the UK and Ireland to plan and organise a 3 day conference (details to be confirmed at a late date)

Manchester workshops will take place in The People’s History Museum and Central Library on weekends between February 12th and March 26th 2022.

This is a very exciting opportunity for young people (aged 16-25) from Manchester to get involved with the creation of a book from start to finish, gaining skills, knowledge and experience to shape their future lives as writers or illustrators.

Our workshops will be lead by Jay Hulme, an award winning transgender performance poet, speaker and educator and New York Times best selling illustrator David Roberts.

To apply and find out more information on all of the above, please download the application pack below.

Please note that the deadline to submit an application has now been extended to Monday 31st January 2022 at 5pm. If you have any questions on the project or application please email us mcrcityoflit@gmail.com. Good luck with your applications!