David Almond: the tale of Seven Stories

The multi-award winning author of Skellig and now the Song For Ella Grey tells the incredible story of the birth of Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s books that towers above the Ouseburn river in Newcastle

Find out more about A Song For Ella Grey in our Guardian children’s fiction prize longlistee special

I was a newcomer to the world of children’s books when I met the visionaries Elizabeth Hammill and Mary Briggs. I’d written a handful of novels, including Heaven Eyes, much of it set in an abandoned printing works in Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley, and a collection of stories set in Felling-on-Tyne, where I’d grown up.

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