Alastair Chisholm
Alastair is an award-winning children's author and puzzle creator. He's the author of the sci-fi middle-grade adventures ORION LOST and ADAM-2 , and children's picture books THE PRINCE AND THE WITCH AND THE THIEF AND THE BEARS and INCH AND GRUB, as well as books of Sudoku, Kakuro and other puzzles, including the Kids' Book of Sudoku and Kids' Book of Kakuro series.
Alastair lives in Edinburgh with his wife (who is lovely), two children (who are lovely but very loud), and a cat who is yowling at him even though there is clearly food in her bowl, look, it’s right there, *look*.
You can follow him on Twitter at @alastair_ch
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Liz Hyder
Liz Hyder is a writer and creative workshop leader. In early 2018, she won The Bridge Award/Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award. Her debut novel for young adults, Bearmouth, was named The Times Children's Book of the Year in 2019, won the Waterstones Children's Book for Older Readers 2020 and the Branford Boase Award 2020. It was also shortlisted for the UKLA Awards and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her debut book for adults, The Gifts, published in hardback in February 2022 (UK and Commonwealth). Originally from London, she now lives in South Shropshire in a small medieval market town surrounded by hills, books and plants.
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Pádraig Kenny
Pádraig Kenny is an Irish writer who hails from Newbridge in County Kildare.
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His debut novel Tin was published in 2018 and was Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month. It has been nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and several other awards.
His second novel Pog was published in April 2019 and was Independent Bookseller's Book of the Month.
His third novel The Monsters of Rookhaven was published in September 2020 by Pan Macmillan. It won the Honour Award for Fiction in the 2021 KPMG Children's Books Ireland awards and was Waterstones Children's Book of the Month in October 2021, and has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. It has also been optioned by Dream Logic Studios with the intention of adapting it into an animated movie. The sequ -
Jennifer Bell
Londoner Jennifer Bell began working in children’s books as a specialist bookseller at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, one of the world’s most famous bookstores. After having the privilege of listening to children talk about their favorite books for many years, she started writing a book of her own on her lunch breaks.
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For other authors with the same name, see Jennifer^^Bell. -
Nadine Aisha Jassat
Nadine Aisha Jassat is the author of poetry collection Let Me Tell You This, described by Nikita Gill (The Girl and The Goddess) as 'beautifully written, immense and full of passion'. She is the author of two middle-grade mystery novels in verse: The Stories Grandma Forgot (And How I Found Them) described by Sophie Anderson (The House With Chicken Legs) as ‘one of those books that truly makes the world a better place,' and The Hidden Story of Estie Noor, described by Maisie Chan (Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths) as a ‘warm hug of a book', where 'finding the power of telling your own story is central to this joyful tale of kindness and community.’
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Nadine has taught and performed internationally and across media, including BBC Scotland’s The Big -
Kelly McCaughrain
Kelly was born in Belfast in 1977 and grew up in nineteenth-century Avonlea. She doesn’t remember much about her (probably very nice) childhood and suspects this is because she wasn’t paying attention. She was reading Anne of Green Gables.
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She started writing when she was six.
She started hiding her writing when she was seven.
She was forced out of the writing closet when she was 35. One of her favourite activities is talking to teenagers about writing because she was too shy to do this when she was young.
She studied at Queens University Belfast, where she did two degrees. For fun. She currently lives with her husband Michael and their ancient VW campervan Gerda.
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Melissa Welliver
Melissa Welliver writes speculative fiction about how the End Of The World is never really the end of the world. After studying MA Creative Writing under Jeanette Winterson at the University of Manchester, she went on to complete Curtis Brown Creative’s Writing for Children course. Her work has listed in Bath Novel Award, Mslexia, the Hachette Children’s Novel Award, and the Wells Book for Children Competition. She has been published in two short story collections and is an avid member of the Twitter writing community. Born in Stockport, she now lives in the High Peak with an assortment of doggy friends. The Undying Tower is her first novel.
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Rachel Delahaye
Rachel Delahaye writes children's fiction. Her teen sci-fi, Electric Life was longlisted for the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing, and her upper middle-grade eco thriller Day of the Whale was nominated for the 2023 Yoto Carnegie.
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Her catalogue includes a middle-grade series called Mort the Meek - a dark and gruesome comedy, described as 'Pratchetesque' by The Guardian, an animal adventure series published by Little Tiger, and a three-book comedy series, Jim Reaper, published with Piccadilly Press.
There are more middle grade and teen projects on the horizon. Rachel also writes fiction and poetry for accelerated reading schemes and Level Readers to help children gain reading confidence. -
Doreen Cronin
Doreen Cronin (born 1966) is an American writer of children's books, including Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, a very well-received picture book illustrated by Betsy Lewin.
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Mo Willems
#1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: a cautionary tale.
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In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early readers, and published You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons, an annotated cartoon journal sketched during a year-long voyage around the world in 1990-91.
The New York Times Book Review called Mo “the biggest new talent to emerge thus far in the 00's."
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Frances Hardinge
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a huge, isolated old house in a small, strange village, and the two things inspired her to write strange, magical stories from an early age. She studied English at Oxford University and now lives in Oxford, England.
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Patrick Ness
Patrick Ness, an award-winning novelist, has written for Radio 4 and The Sunday Telegraph and is a literary critic for The Guardian. He has written many books, including the Chaos Walking Trilogy, The Crash of Hennington, Topics About Which I Know Nothing, and A Monster Calls.
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He has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Born in Virginia, he currently lives in London. -
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James Dean
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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James Dean is the original creator and illustrator of Pete the Cat. He is a self-taught artist originally from Fort Payne, Alabama. His passion for drawing became apparent at a young age, and as a child, you could find James drawing his favorite characters like Snoopy and Yogi Bear.
James earned his degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University and went on to work for Georgia Power for a number of years. Eventually, he was called to pursue his art full- time and began selling his work at art festivals around the Southeast. It was during this time that he began creating paintings and drawing of his cat, Pete.The little blue cat showed up as a char -
Jory John
Jory John is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor recipient.
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Jory's work includes the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Good Egg, and the #2 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Bad Seed, both illustrated by Pete Oswald. He is also the author of the popular picture books, Penguin Problems and Giraffe Problems, both illustrated by Lane Smith, the award-winning Goodnight Already! series, illustrated by Benji Davies, the New York Times bestselling Terrible Two series, the recent picture books Quit Calling Me a Monster! (with Bob Shea), Can Somebody Please Scratch My Back? (with Liz Climo), and the international bestseller, All my friends are dead, among many other books for both -
Tom Percival
Tom Percival writes and illustrates picture books (you know, for kids) as well as illustrating books written by other people. The most well known of these is probably the excellent Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy.
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He grew up in a remote and beautiful part of South Shropshire. On reflection this seemed rather more remote than beautiful, owing to the fact that he lived in a small caravan without electricity, mains water or any sensible form of heating. He thinks that he’s probably one of the few people in his peer group to have learnt to read by gas lamp.
Surprisingly enough he has never been called ‘hippy’ (to the best of his knowledge)
Tom now lives in an actual house with his girlfriend and their two young sons.
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Catherine Bruton
I live just outside Bath with my husband, Jonny, and my two children (plus two toy monkeys, six goldfish and we’re hoping to get some chickens!). I teach English two days a week at a local secondary school. I also write articles for newspapers and magazines. Oh, and I write novels too!
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Phil Earle
Phil was born in Hull in 1974, and he studied English and Drama at Hull University. He worked for a year as a carer in a children’s home, then after training as a drama therapist, he worked in a therapeutic community in London, which cared for multiply abused adolescents. Then, changing tack completely, he chose a marginally more sedate life as a children’s bookseller. It was here that he developed an obsession for kid’s literature, in particular, young adult fiction.
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After three years at Ottakar’s, he became a sales rep, and then a key account manager for Transworld/Random House, and is now sales director at Simon and Schuster Children’s Books.
Phil lives in South East London with his wife and three young children. -
Katherine Rundell
Katherine Rundell was born in 1987 and grew up in Africa and Europe. In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her first book, The Girl Savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there; her second, Rooftoppers, was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel.
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Source: Katherine Rundell -
Brian Conaghan
Brian Conaghan lives and works in the Scottish town of Coatbridge. He has a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, and worked as a teacher for many years. His novel When Mr Dog Bites was shortlisted for the 2015 CILIP Carnegie Medal. The Bombs That Brought Us Together won the 2016 Costa Children’s Book Award, The Weight of a Thousand Feathers won the 2018 Irish Book Award for Teen/YA Book of the Year, and We Come Apart, a verse novel co-authored with Carnegie Medal-winner Sarah Crossan, won the 2018 UKLA Book Award. Cardboard Cowboys, Brian’s first middle-grade novel, published in 2021 and is full of his trademark heart, humour and crackling dialogue. Swimming on the Moon is his second middle-grade novel. @Con
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Ross Montgomery
Ross Montgomery has worked as a pig farmer, a postman and a primary school teacher, so writing books was the next logical step. He spent his childhood reading everything he could get his hands on, from Jacqueline Wilson to Beano annuals, and it taught him pretty much everything that's worth knowing. If you looked through his pockets you'd find empty crisp packets, lists of things to do, and a bottle of that stuff you put on your nails to stop you biting them. He lives in London with his girlfriend, a cat called Fun Bobby, and a cactus on every available surface.
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Sarah Crossan
Sarah Crossan is Irish. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and Drama teacher at Cambridge University and worked to promote creative writing in schools before leaving teaching to write full time.
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She completed her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick in 2003 and in 2010 received an Edward Albee Fellowship for writing.
She currently lives in NYC. -
Sylvia Bishop
Sylvia Bishop spent an entire childhood reading fiction, dreaming up stories and pretending. She then tried very hard to get to grips with the real world by studying politics and going in to social science research. This was a shock. Thankfully, she discovered improvised comedy at university, which allowed her to carry on making up stories for at least 30% of her waking hours.
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Now she writes her stories down, preferably by lamp-light with tea. She only ever really writes the bad ones: the good ones write themselves without warning, generally when she was planning to go to bed.
Sylvia now lives in London, where she continues to work in research, and is one half of improvised comedy duo the Peablossom Cabaret. Her first book for young readers, -
Clare Furniss
Furniss grew up in London, and moved to Birmingham in her teens. After brief stints as a waitress, a shop assistant, and working at the Shakespeare Centre Library in Stratford-upon-Avon, she studied at Cambridge and Aberdeen. She went on to work in media relations for the homelessness charity Shelter and spent several years as a press officer for the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. She now lives in Bath.
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Jamie Littler
Jamie is an author-illustrator who graduated from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth in 2008, going on to win a High Commendation in the Macmillan Children's Book Award. When not trying to tame his unnaturally fast growing hair or having staring matches with next door's cat, he likes drawing, colouring in, cutting things out and sticking things in. He sometimes uses a scanner and a computer, and too often is tempted to throw his printer out of the window. But he would just have to go and pick it up again. His interests are pretty wide and varied -- although he does have a soft spot for wild animals and things that go bump in the night. Jamie's illustration work includes Hamish and the Worldstoppers which was the bestselling children's debut
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Matt Goodfellow
Matt Goodfellow was a primary school teacher for more than ten years before becoming a full-time poet and author. Shu Lin’s Grandpa is his first book with Candlewick Press. He lives with his wife and children in Manchester, England.
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Kelly McCaughrain
Kelly was born in Belfast in 1977 and grew up in nineteenth-century Avonlea. She doesn’t remember much about her (probably very nice) childhood and suspects this is because she wasn’t paying attention. She was reading Anne of Green Gables.
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She started writing when she was six.
She started hiding her writing when she was seven.
She was forced out of the writing closet when she was 35. One of her favourite activities is talking to teenagers about writing because she was too shy to do this when she was young.
She studied at Queens University Belfast, where she did two degrees. For fun. She currently lives with her husband Michael and their ancient VW campervan Gerda.
Her first novel, Flying Tips for Flightless Birds, has been described by insiders -
Elle McNicoll
Hey, I'm Elle. I'm Scottish, autistic and an author/screenwriter who is really bad at logging her reading choices.
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I write about autistic girls finding out who they are and what makes them happy, because I'm an autistic girl trying to find out who she is and what makes her happy.
I don't read reviews, as they are for readers, but I'm grateful to any and everyone who engages with my work, on the page or on the screen. My Young Adult Romance debut is called Some Like It Cold in it will be published on the 3rd of October. Official professional shiz below:
Elle McNicoll is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her debut, A Kind of Spark, won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well -
Lesley Parr
Lesley Parr grew up in South Wales and now lives in England with her husband and their rescue cat, Angharad. She shares her time between writing stories, teaching at a primary school and tutoring adults. Apart from books, rugby union is her favourite thing in the world, especially if Wales is winning. Lesley graduated with distinction from Bath Spa University's MA in Writing for Young People. The Valley of Lost Secrets is her first novel.
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Margaret McDonald
Margaret McDonald is a Scottish author from Glasgow. She has been published in various poetry and prose magazines, including The Manifest Station, In Parentheses, Breath and Shadow, and Bandit Fiction. She is a first-generation university student and holds an MLitt in English Literature with distinction (Glasgow University) and a first class B.A Honours in Creative Writing with English Literature (Strathclyde University). She writes about the working class experience, the student experience, and the Scottish healthcare system as a former NHS employee and disabled author. Glasgow Boys is her debut.
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Kathryn Simmonds
Kathryn Simmonds’ poetry collection Sunday at the Skin Launderette won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.
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Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The London Magazine and The Barcelona Review, and broadcast on Radio 4. Her second poetry collection is The Visitations (2013) and she was the first poet-in-residence at The Charles Causley Trust in 2013/14. Seren published her first novel Love and Fallout in 2014. -
Gary Crew
Dr Gary Crew, author of novels, short stories and picture books for older children and young adults, began his writing career in 1985, when he was a high school teacher. His books are challenging and intriguing, often based on non-fiction. As well as writing fiction, Gary is a Associate Professor in Creative Writing, Children's and Adult Literature, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and editor of the After Dark series.
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He lives with his wife Christine on several acres in the cool, high mountains of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in Queensland, Australia in a house called 'Green Mansions' which is shaded by over 200 Australian rainforest palms he has cultivated. He enjoys gardening, reading, and playing with his dogs Ferris, -
Alice Nuttall
Alice Nuttall is a writer, knitter, D&D player and coffee thief. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two sleepy cats.
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Lucy Ann Unwin
Lucy's debut novel for children The Octopus, Dadu and Me was shortlisted for multiple awards, including The Brilliant Book Awards. Her background is in journalism. She was a music journalist at BBC 6 Music for 10 years, where she was privileged enough to interview the likes of Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Adele and absorb hundreds of hours of wonderful live music.
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Brought up in Birmingham, Lucy has lived all around the UK, from Newcastle to Brixton, Worcester to Chesterfield. She also lived for a year in the Chilean city of Valparaiso, and for three years in San Francisco. She has now settled on the Sussex clifftops with her husband and two daughters (and tortoise), where she divides her time between writing, editing and reading as muc