Mollie Ray is a comic artist, illustrator and author from Lancashire.

Her debut graphic novel giant was published in 2024 with Faber & Faber, paperback released August 2025. Ray’s work has been featured by Creative Boom, The AOI, Bookmunch, Foyles and more. Winner of the Break Out Talent category of the Broken Frontier Awards 2026 and recently appointed the first Young Comics Laureate for 2025/26 by Comics Youth and The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival.

Ray has also published multiple short form comics, including work for the Scottish Book Trust and the BBC. As well as creating comics, they work as a creative facilitator – notably in 2025, undertaking projects in prisons, with care-experienced young people, regular youth-led projects with Escape2Make and visiting Palestine to help 13 Palestinian artists turn their stories into comics.

Mollie Ray will talk to and draw with young people during the Festival of Libraries to share how comics and literature have inspired their life and career, taking place with young people from Christ Church Primary.

Please note this event is for a schools audience only. Check out the other comics events, exhibitions and workshops open to the public during the festival below.