Helen has extensive experience designing and delivering creative workshops and engagements for children, families, and communities. She regularly works with schools, libraries, literary festivals, museums, and colleges, and has particular expertise in co-design within communities. See some examples of her work below.
SCHOOL + LIBRARY VISITS
WORKSHOPS + ENGAGEMENT
SCHOOL + LIBRARY VISITS
Helen provides book readings and creative writing and art workshops for children in schools, libraries, nurseries, and at literary festivals. No two workshops ever look exactly the same as she works to meet the specific needs/interests of the groups she is working with. She is happy to work across all ages and has experience working with small groups, classes and assemblies.
In addition to school visits, Helen enjoys working over longer periods with schools through author/artist residencies. In 2025-2026, she was a Scottish Book Trust Author in Residence at Cranhill Primary School. She was also Artist in Residence at the Boswell Book Festival in 2026.
She is listed on the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature Database and generally works to their fee structure.
Previous author events for children and families include:
Fringe By the Sea
Wigtown Book Festival
The Boswell Book Festival
Glasgow Westend Book Festival
Golden Hare Books Festival
Tales for Tots
2 Rivers Book Festival
Wee Write Festival
Glasgow Libraries
North Lanarkshire Libraries
West Dunbartonshire Libraries
Culture Perth and Kinross
Scottish Book Trust Author in Residence
From August 2025 to June 2026, Helen was a Scottish Book Trust Author in Residence at Cranhill Primary School in the east end of Glasgow. During this time, Helen designed and led a series of outdoor sessions that invited children to connect with their local natural spaces through writing and illustration. Towards the end of their time together, Helen led a series of character design and story workshops inspired by their time outside, which resulted in the co-design of a brand new picture book, Roberto’s Big Surprise.
WORKSHOPS + ENGAGEMENT
In addition to her extensive work with children, Helen regularly provides creative workshops and talks for adults and students. She is a Visiting Lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art and has delivered talks at the AOI, the Leith School of Art, the Edinburgh Book Festival, the City of Glasgow College, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Helen also regularly works with museums and libraries to create engaging participatory art programmes. Through this, she has gained extensive experience working on co-design alongside young people, families, and communities. Below are a selection of projects she has recently worked on.
Previous workshops and engagement include:
Edinburgh Book Festival
Association of Illustrators
Wigtown Book Festival
Scottish National Gallery Modern Art One
The Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow City College
The Leith School of Art
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons
Page\Park
West Dunbartonshire Libraries
The Scottish Book Trust
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
From August 2025 to June 2026, as part of their ‘Expanding Audubon’ project, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow commissioned Helen to design and deliver an arts programme engaging the public with their displayed copies of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. As part of this, she led creative well-being sessions for staff, the local community, and members of the Glasgow Association for Mental Health. Sessions encouraged participants to engage with and consider different aspects of Audubon’s work while experimenting with artistic techniques such as drawing, collage, watercolour, and cyanotype printing.
Helen also worked over the course of the year with the children of Anderston Primary to explore environmental themes and question some of the more problematic aspects of Audubon’s work. Together, they experimented with a variety of different mediums and co-created their own Audubon-inspired book of local birds, The Birds of Anderston.
RCPSG: The Birds of Anderston with Anderston Primary
RCPSG: Paper birds winter wellbeing sessions
RCPSG: ‘Expanding Audubon’ sessions with Glasgow Association for Mental Health
Glencairn House Museum and Library
In 2021, Page\Park Architects commissioned Helen to design the ceramic façade of Glencairn Museum House and Library in Dumbarton. Alongside the building’s design, Helen collaborated with Lateral North to lead community engagement workshops with local children which explored some of Dumbarton’s formative heritage and stories. During these sessions, children from local primary schools helped shape the library’s internal exhibition and co-designed a selection of unique characters with Helen. Helen then collaborated with the children to create a story inspired by the River Leven and Dumbarton Rock which will be on display in the library. Find out more about the project here.
