Graphic Novelists Mollie Ray, Helen Bate lined up for Lancaster Litfest

Graphic novelists Mollie Ray and Helen Bate are guests at this year's Lancaster Litfest Autumn Weekend, discussing how the graphic novel format allows them to treat challenging topics with wit and sensitivity, with Jake Hope.

Taking place at Lancaster Library from 3.30pm on Saturday 18th October 2025, tickets are available to order here

Mollie Ray is a Lancaster-based comic artist and illustrator. who graduated from The University of Edinburgh with a First-Class Honours degree in Illustration in 2019. Her work has been featured by Creative Boom, The AOI and Broken Frontier’s ‘Six to Watch in 2021’. She has also done work for the BBC in support of David Attenborough’s Wild Isles series and self-published multiple short-form comics, and been part of the British Comics Now project organised by the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, promoting British comics and creators worldwide. 

Her debut graphic novel, Giant (Faber), was described as a "Wonderful, moving, original book" by writer Robert MacFarlane. "It teaches us a new visual language for love, for worry and for family," he says. 

One morning, a teenage boy wakes to find that he has grown to the size of a giant. Inspired by the journey of the author’s younger brother, this wordless wonder of a book follows the experience of a family as one of their own faces a life-threatening illness. As his health declines, can the family remain resilient on his long journey through treatment?

Helen Bate is a children’s writer and illustrator whose picture book ABC UK, written by James Dunn, a celebration of all things British, from King Arthur to Zero Degrees Latitude, was nominated for the Kate Greenway Medal. 

Helen is the author/illustrator of three graphic novels published by Otter-Barry Books – Peter in Peril, Me and Mrs Moon and The Lost Child of Chernobyl. She lives in Shropshire, has three grown up children, seven grandchildren and two dogs.

In Peter in Peril, a powerful graphic novel is based on a true story, Peter is just an ordinary boy growing up in Budapest, who loves playing football with his friends and eating cake – until war comes to his city and the whole family have to go into hiding. 

Lancaster Litfest's Autumn Weekend 2025 runs from Thursday 17th-21st October with a special post festival event on 18th November in partnership with Lancaster Arts. Creators at the event, whose work spans, fact, fiction, poetry and more also include best-selling author Lucy Strange, hosting a fun morning of spooky mysteries, ghosts and monsters, the perfect way to kick off Halloween season; author Carol Ann Lee, who will be bringing an entirely fresh perspective to the story of the Pendle Witches by approaching it as true crime; and Malik Al Nasir, whose book, Searching for my Slave Roots unravels not just the legacies of enslavement but also plantation economics and the wealth of a slaveholding dynasty that he himself is descended from through the exploitation of those they enslaved.

• Lancaster LitFest 2025: Mollie Ray and Helen Bate: Giant and Peter in Peril 3.30pm The Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH | Buy tickets to attend in-person | Lancaster LitFest is online at litfest.org

• Mollie Ray is online at mollieray.co.uk

• Helen Bate is online at helenbatebooks.com