Michael Rosen's Birthday

Auntie Maureen
Theatrical DJ and queer music curator Auntie Maureen likes to dig deep: for history and for rendering audible the sonic stories of the invisible, the forgotten and the erased. She/they have queered up DJ sets at venues and festivals including Kew Gardens, Tate Britain, RISEN!, Bestival, Wilderness, Shambala, Latitude, Barbican, Museum of London and Incloodu Festival of Deaf Arts. Auntie Maureen has  undertaken projects combining historical archival research with performative music curation for organisations like The National Trust, the Metropolitan Archives and Duckie.

Len Blanco
Len Blanco is a drag king, musician, comedian, writer, actor, director and facilitator. Time Out says as a compère and singer he has ‘overwhelming talent’, and since he started out as a drag king in 2016, you may have seen Blanco on many stages, including at the Southbank Centre, Blackpool Tower, a tent in Glastonbury and a bus in Edinburgh.

Ishmael Kirby
Ishmael Kirby is the founder of sTink, an Antifa, trans-focused club and cabaret night that blends activism, cabaret and community workshops. He is also the creator of drag counterpart Cyro, a Blasian, trans-masculine, Drag King/Thing. He exudes political ferocious and heartfelt celebrations of the Black trans experience, rooting his work in the LGBTQIA+ community, and drawing from queer ancestors within their practice.

MC Grammar
MC Grammar is the creation of award-winning teacher and rapper Jacob Mitchell, who went viral in 2019 after a video of him rapping popular children’s book The Gruffalo received over five million views. Mitchell believes no child should be left behind, and that there needs to be excitement, challenge, inclusion and, most importantly, fun in the classroom! The Adventures of Rap Kid, his debut children’s book, was one of the bestselling debut children’s fiction titles of 2025, and his latest book, written with Michael Rosen, is Ridiculous Raps & Rhymes.

Chris Riddell
One of the UK’s top contemporary illustrators and cartoonists, Chris Riddell has written and illustrated an exceptional range of books and is winner of illustration awards including the UNESCO Prize, the Greenaway Medal (on three occasions) and the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration at the 2015 Hay Festival, where he was described as ‘the greatest illustrator of his generation’. He was Children’s Laureate from 2015 until 2017.

Hannah Robinson
Hannah Robinson is a London-based illustrator and cartoonist, whose work is now featured in Michael Rosen’s new book Nice! She works regularly for The Guardian and the New York Times, among others.

Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen was born in 1946 in north London. One of the best-known figures in the children’s book world, he is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. As an author and by selecting other writers’ works for anthologies he has been involved with more than 140 books.

Joshua Seigal
Joshua Seigal is an internationally renowned poet, performer and educator. He has several collections of poetry published with Bloomsbury, and has won numerous awards, including the Laugh Out Loud Book Award and The People’s Book Prize. Seigal has performed at the Edinburgh Book Festival and taken shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, and is an Official Ambassador for National Poetry Day UK.