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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Total similar authors (28)

Tia Fisher

I’m an author from south-east England, writing from middle-grade to YA in prose and verse. I love exploring important issues: writing gritty, realistic fiction for young people; accessible fiction that opens conversations.

Crossing the Line, my debut teen verse novel about a boy who gets caught up in county lines drug exploitation, won the 2024 Carnegie Shadowers’ Medal, the 2024 UKLA prize, was in the 2024 Read for Empathy collection and was one of The Times and Sunday Times’ best children’s books of 2024.

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Sophie Cameron

Sophie Cameron is the author of several novels for teens and young adults. Her books have been shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing, the UKLA Book Awards, the Polari Children's & YA Prize and the Diverse Book Awards, among others, and won a Leeds Book Award in 2023. Originally from the Scottish Highlands, she now lives in Spain with her wife and their twin sons.
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Joseph Coelho

Joseph Coelho is a British poet and children's book author who was elected Children's Laureate in 2022.
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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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Meg Grehan

Meg Grehan is a young writer hiding away in Donegal in the northwest of Ireland, with a very ginger girlfriend, an even more ginger dog and an undisclosed number of cats (none of whom is ginger).

Her first book The Space Between won the Eilis Dillon Award at the 2017 Children’s Books Ireland Awards. The Deepest Breath won the Judges Special Award at the 2020 KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards. It was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Award 2020.
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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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Ashley Hickson-Lovence

Ashley Hickson-Lovence was born in London in 1991 and is a former secondary school English teacher with a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. His debut novel, The 392, was released in April 2019 and his second novel, Your Show, was released in April 2022. His third book, a YA-in-verse called Wild East, is released with Penguin in May 2024.
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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.

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
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Jenny Valentine

Jenny Valentine moved house every two years when she was growing up. She has just moved house again, probably not for the last time. She worked in a wholefood shop in Primrose Hill for fifteen years where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic loaves than there are words in her first novel. She has also worked as a teaching assistant and a jewellery maker. She studied English Literature at Goldsmiths College, which almost put her off reading but not quite.
Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children.

In 2007, Jenny won the Guardian Prize for Children's Fiction with her debut novel FINDING VIOLET PARK.
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Annet Schaap

Annet Schaap wilde altijd al tekenaar worden, of schrijver, of ontdekkingsreizigster.

Ze studeerde aan twee kunstacademies en een schrijversschool.

Sinds 1991 illustreerde ze bijna 200 kinderboeken en is in Nederland het meest bekend door haar tekeningen bij de succesvolle Hoe Overleef Ik-serie van Francine Oomen. Maar ze illustreerde ook veel boeken van andere geliefde schrijvers, zoals Janneke Schotveld, Manon Sikkel, Jacques Vriens, Annie M.G. Schmidt en Astrid Lindgren.

Met haar Canadese man Tom en hun zoontje Jonas (2009) trok ze een paar jaar lang in een camper door Noord en Midden Amerika. Lees hier meer over hun avonturen: http://www.annetschaap.com/category/r...

Nu woont ze weer gewoon in Utrecht en tekent en schrijft om en om.
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Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, Jason Reynolds moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself. Well, not really talking to himself, but just repeating character names and plot lines he thought of on the train, over and over again, because he’s afraid he’ll forget it all before he gets home.
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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.

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.
His favourite colour
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Davide Morosinotto

Davide Morosinotto è nato nel 1980 in provincia di Padova. Vive a Bologna, dopo una parentesi romana di un paio d’anni. Il suo mestiere è quello di traduttore di software e i suoi hobby sono le moto, i libri e i videogame. Da qualche anno si è dedicato alla scrittura di libri per ragazzi ottenendo subito importanti risultati come il premio "Mondadori Junior Award".

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Enne Koens

Enne Koens schrijft drama, proza en liedjes. Theater schreef ze onder andere voor theatergroep Artemis, theatergroep Max, De Toneelmakerij en het Gasthuis. Ook vulde ze twee zomers de Studio 7 tent op De Parade met haar eigen muziektheatergroep ‘Het Paleis voor Volksvlijt’. In 2004 won ze de Hollandse Nieuwe Toneelschrijfprijs voor het toneelstuk Skills. Verschillende teksten zijn te verkrijgen op www.theaterboek.nl.

In 2007 verscheen haar eerste roman: Tot alles gezegd is. In 2011 lag de YA-roman Vogel in de winkels, waarmee je de Jonge Jury Debuutprijs in de wacht sleepte. In 2013 verscheen het veelgeprezen Sammie en opa. Een ontroerend voorleesboek voor 7 jaar en ouder. Een nieuw jeugdboek, genaamd Hotel Humus, is in de maak.
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Suzanne Wouda

Hallo!
Ik schrijf boeken voor kinderen en volwassenen, vooral over geschiedenis. Mijn boek Sabel kreeg een Zilveren Griffel en Verschoppelingen en Oorlog in Inkt ontvingen een Vlag&Wimpel.
Mijn nieuwe boek Futuria is in september 2024 verschenen bij uitgeverij Ploegsma.
Superleuk als je een recensie achterlaat.
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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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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.
Buy books on Amazon
Sophie Cameron

Sophie Cameron is the author of several novels for teens and young adults. Her books have been shortlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing, the UKLA Book Awards, the Polari Children's & YA Prize and the Diverse Book Awards, among others, and won a Leeds Book Award in 2023. Originally from the Scottish Highlands, she now lives in Spain with her wife and their twin sons.
Buy books on Amazon
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.

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
Buy books on Amazon
Ashley Hickson-Lovence

Ashley Hickson-Lovence was born in London in 1991 and is a former secondary school English teacher with a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. His debut novel, The 392, was released in April 2019 and his second novel, Your Show, was released in April 2022. His third book, a YA-in-verse called Wild East, is released with Penguin in May 2024.
Buy books on Amazon
Tia Fisher

I’m an author from south-east England, writing from middle-grade to YA in prose and verse. I love exploring important issues: writing gritty, realistic fiction for young people; accessible fiction that opens conversations.

Crossing the Line, my debut teen verse novel about a boy who gets caught up in county lines drug exploitation, won the 2024 Carnegie Shadowers’ Medal, the 2024 UKLA prize, was in the 2024 Read for Empathy collection and was one of The Times and Sunday Times’ best children’s books of 2024.

Grab yourself an early read of Not Going to Plan, a YA verse novel about teenage sexuality, consent, and the right to make choices without shame or blame. https://lnk.to/NotGoingToPlan
Buy books on Amazon
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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A. Connors

A. Connors is a former physicist and former child who likes writing stories and building unlikely, poorly thought through gadgets.

His favourite bio tidbits include: spending his PHD underground at CERN, helping design one of the detectors for the Large Hadron Collider; teaching physics in Sudan; selling encyclopedias in Chicago and fitting Wi-Fi in the refugee camps in Greece.

In his spare time he manages an engineering team for Google Health, a project that aims to use big data and machine learning to improve the quality of healthcare. He lives in Hertfordshire with his partner, two boys, and a dog.

His debut transformative and spine-tingling teen novel, THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE SEA, will be published by Scholastic UK in Feb 2023.
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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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Manjeet Mann

Manjeet is an actress, playwright, screenwriter and director. She is the founder of Run The World - an organization that works with women and girls from marginalized backgrounds and helps to empower them through sport and storytelling. She lives in Kent.
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Julian Sedgwick

Julian Sedgwick is a writer of many books for children, including the Mysterium trilogy, the Ghosts of Shanghai trilogy, and the graphic novel Dark Satanic Mills, cowritten with his brother, Marcus Sedgwick, and illustrated by John Higgins and Marc Olivent. Julian Sedgwick lives in England.
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Jenny Pearson

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Clara Kumagai

Clara Kumagai is from Canada, Japan, and Ireland. Catfish Rolling, her debut novel, was a 2024 YOTO Carnegie Medal nominee, shortlisted for the Great Reads Award and winner of the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year. She lives and writes in Ireland.

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