Claire Walsh - Author Book Signing Trail

Meet the Author! Ness Book Fest is delighted to host local author Claire Walsh at Ablekids Press.

Claire is a self-confessed word nerd, stationery addict, and professional book-sniffer. You’ll usually find her loitering by the notebooks in a bookshop and stroking pens she definitely doesn’t need.

For over 20 years Claire was a primary school teacher with the same thought on loop: “Why aren’t there more books where all kids see themselves?” So she stopped wishing and started writing. Her first children’s book, The Princess Without a Crown, was published in 2020 and promptly shot to Number 1 on Amazon, making her a Number 1 bestselling author at 50. Proof that it’s never too late.

Claire doesn’t do boxes. She writes for children and adults, poetry and prose, giggles and grief. Her second book, The Pink Widow, is the brutally honest, tender story of her husband dying and becoming a widow at just 45. Wishes for the Grieving is the poetry collection that came out of those years, the poems she wrote when normal words wouldn’t work. Her second children's book Uncle Jasmine, a joyful, stereotype-smashing book about a child whose family member is gender-fluid, because kids deserve to see families like theirs in stories.

When she’s not writing she’s coaching other would-be authors to stop procrastinating and just write! She spends her days living her childhood dream and encouraging everyone else to live theirs. She wholeheartedly believes that every child deserves to see themselves as the hero of a story, every adult has a book inside of them, and you can never own too many notebooks and pens!

Come to the AbleKids Press on the Market Brae steps and say Hello.

Please note: Tickets are issued in 10 minute blocks to save you waiting for a long time. We will try to accommodate everyone so don't stress if you are running late but please do try to kind and mindful of everyone in the queue. A Ness Book Fest volunteer will be there to assist you.