Christina Gabbitas

Christina Gabbitas is an award winning children's author, poet and voice artist. A succesful author and businesswoman, and unrecognisable from her younger self. At school she was a pupil who preffered to sit at the back of the classroom and blend in with the furniture, scared of people and anything that moved. She was a quiet, shy character who nearly lost her first job, as she found it difficult to converse with people. Over a period of time she had to teach herself not to be so self-concious and gradually she flourished with an abundance of energy, ideas and passion to achieve. Christina not only writes but stages storytellling sessions, engaging with primary age children, encouraging imagination through writing. Christina equally enjoys inspiring older children to believe in themselves, as she talks eloquently about her journey from wallflower to author, poet, voice artist and director.

Christina has made her dreams become a reality and feels privileged to be able to pass on her experience to others. Christina Gabbitas is a children’s author, poet, storyteller and voiceover artist, who always loved to read rhyming books and poetry in my early years. She penned some stories that she stored away in a box file twenty years ago, thinking that one day she would do something with them. Welcome to the World of Felicity Fly was born in 2012. The series has taken her into the final of the People's Book Prize 2014-2018, winning Best Achievement Award in May 2019.

Born in Blackburn, Lancashire where she spent the first twenty two years of her life, before moving to various parts of Yorkshire, where she now lives. (passports for both)

Christina is founder and trustee of Children's Literature Festivals charity, her patrons and ambassadors include musician Michael Bradley of The Undertones and Actress Jenny Agutter.

As a child she loved to read anything that rhymed. One of her earliest recollections of fun poetry was Spike Milligan’s Granny and also On The Ning Nang Nong. She loves Spike Milligan’s book Silly Verse For Kids.

She has always had a love of music and used to help the headmaster of her primary school tune the piano. She spent some of her teenage years playing saxophone and percussion with a band and supported a popular indie band at that time called The Chameleons. They played around venues in Lancashire and admits that she did look at little freaky!