• Morning:

  07.30 - 08.15 morning dance with Stina Nilsson
  
  Welcome to start your Småbus day by awakening your body and mind through movement and stillness.
  We begin gently with stretching and meditation, then explore our body's own language of movement by listening to the movement within us.
  Through simple improvisational exercises, we dance together in relation to each other, time and space.
  We use practices that help us find a state of presence and playfulness in our interaction with ourselves and each other.
  
  Morning dance requires no previous experience and is suitable for all ages and bodies.
  

• 08.15 - 09.15 Breakfast
  
  
• 09.30 Welcome
  
  
• 10.00 - 11.30 Opening lecture: Martine Letterie (The Netherlands): Balance between Light and Darkness
  
  How do we write about dark subjects for young children? And why should we? Martine Letterie has written about difficult, dark subjects for relatively young children.
  In her lecture, she tells us about how she came to address these subjects after avoiding darkness for years, her search for a good balance and how to make dark subjects
  bearable for young readers.
  
  
• 12.00 Lunch
  
  

• 13.30 - 17.00 (with fika 15.00 - 15.30)
  As a participant you choose one workshop out of three.
  We do what we can to grant your first choice.
  
  Workshop 1: Lotta Geffenblad (Sweden): Out of the dark

  In this workshop, we will use various techniques to discover what it is like to work negatively, to let light emerge from darkness, as it were. We will explore how to work with light colours on a dark background, ‘developing’ the illustrations, both technically and in terms of motif.
  
  (For all)

  
  Workshop 2: Jef Aerts (Belgium): Fireflies and Other Shadow Animals
  
  Writing is like painting with light. Layer by layer, you can build and deepen a story by illuminating certain elements and making shadows more or less visible. The addition of a single firefly can transform a tale of despair into one that glows with hope.
  
  (For writers)
  
  Workshop 3: Linda Bondestam (Finland): Hodie mihi, cras tibi (Today it's me, tomorrow it's you)
   
  It can be interpreted in many ways, life and death, winter and summer, night and day, old and young.
  We will create leporello books using a wide range of materials in a few colours.
  
  (For illustrators)
  
  

• 18.00 - 19.00 dinner
  
  
• 19.00 - 20.00   Lecture Eloise Williams (Wales): Where Adults Fear to Tread
  
  An exploration of the darker elements in children’s fiction.  Whether it be the spooky imagined, emotional darkness, or events from history, dark elements can enrich fiction for young people.
  Eloise will discuss how she incorporates these elements in her own fictional work and how you can weave darkness through yours.

• 07.30 - 08.15 morning dance with Stina Nilsson
  
  

• 08.15 -09.00 Breakfast
  
  

• 09.15   Buss travel to Astrid Lindgrens Näs
  
  
• 11.00 - 11.30 Vernissage exhibition Master Detective Blomkvist Around the world
  
  
  
• 12.00 - 13.00 Lecture (more info to follow)
  
  

• 13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
  
  
• 14.00 - 16.30 Group 1 stays at Astrid Lindgrens Näs and can visit the gardens, exhibitions and Astrid Lindgrens childhood home.
  Group 2: program to be confirmed later.
  
  
  Evening:
  
  

• 18.00 - ...
  Informal Portfolio evening: participants get the chance to show their work and connect with other participants.
  
  
  

• 07.30 -08.15 Morning dance with Stina Nilsson (Sweden)
  
  
  
• 08.15 - 09.00  Breakfast
  
  
• 09.15 - 10.30  Lecture Elina Breslina (Latvia): Bird people and sharp objects: a mother’s guide to creating your first picture book
  
  For more than ten years I illustrated other people´s stories until I found my own voice, and made a  picture book that celebrates creativity and motherhood, while also dealing with the
  darker parts of the experience - anxiety, rage and an artist´s bruised ego.
  
  
  
  
• 10.30 - 11.00 Fika
  
  
• 11.00 - 12.00 Lecture Kjell Stjernholm (Sweden): Can I join you?
  
  
  How does representation and inclusion of disability work in our stories? What can we - the creators - do to change and develop that?
  
  
  
• Eftermiddag:

• Afternoon
  
  

How to use liminal spaces in fiction to create strange or spooky stories. Walk the line between light and dark and lift the veil on the uncanny. Take your fiction into the shadows and explore without fear.

• Exhibition Master Detective Blomkvist all over the world
• Illustrators are invited to submit an illustration (1 original work, 1 print) to SmåBUS. This illustration is to be based on the stories about Master Detective Blomkvist (Astrid Lindgren)  The original work will exhibited at Astrid Lindgrens Näs during the summer.
  There is a possibility that the exhibition will travel.
  
  
• Extra:
  • During the festival, there are meet and greets to discover the work and life of colleagues from different countries.
    
    
• Extra:
  • Have you met colleagues that thruly inspire you during the festival? Do you feel like working together? Then take the opportunity to submit a request to become artists in residence (2 weeks in 2028) if our funding allows it.