Yvonne Banham

I’m a children’s author based in Stirlingshire, and I write spooky adventures for readers aged 10-14. My first book, The Dark and Dangerous Gifts of Delores Mackenzie, is a ghost filled, shapeshifting, paranormal whydunnit set in Edinburgh Old Town, which also focuses on friendships, personal boundaries and the joy of found family. There’s a scattering of humour in there too. As well as loving all stories with ghosts, monsters and things that go bump in the night, I enjoy using settings as character, exploring the characters themselves, including the ever-popular villains, and utilising all of the senses to enrich a story – there is a lot of food in my writing!

I provide assembly style visits or classroom-based workshops for children in P6 to S2. This includes how and why I became an author, a look at why we enjoy stories that thrill, excite and sometimes even scare us, and how to come up with a recipe for our own spooky stories using those tiny but ever so crucial details that make our writing the best it can be. I set time aside for a reading or two, and always a Q&A.