Mel Taylor-Bessent

Founder of the hugely successful Authorfy and Little Star Writing, Mel Taylor-Bessent has made her career connecting readers to their favourite authors and encouraging children to write for pleasure. After gaining a Creative Writing degree, Mel launched her first business at the age of 22 and ran creative writing workshops for thousands of children aged 6-12. As a result, she also arranged hundreds of author events and witnessed first-hand the positive impact these interactions had on her students.

In 2017, she decided to replicate this via online ‘Author Masterclasses’ on a website she created called Authorfy.com. Since then, Authorfy has gone on to win numerous awards, partner with the likes of World Book Day and BookTrust, and is used in

If you like author Mel Taylor-Bessent here is the list of authors you may also like

Buy books on Amazon

Total similar authors (23)

Kereen Getten

Kereen Getten grew up in Jamaica where she would climb fruit trees in the family garden and eat as much mango, guinep and pear as she could without being caught. She now lives in Birmingham with her family and writes stories about her childhood experiences. When Life Gives You Mangos is her debut novel.
Visit her on n Instagram @Kereengetten
Buy books on Amazon
Jenny Pearson

Jenny Pearson is a technical writer and an artist who loves to write and draw. She enjoys working with kids, whether it's engaging them with arts and crafts activities, helping them learn basic concepts, or just inspiring cute moments. With loads of patience, sunny smiles, and a healthy dose of kindness, almost any day can be a great day.
Buy books on Amazon
L.D. Lapinski

L. D. Lapinski is the best-selling author of JAMIE, Stepfather Christmas, and The Strangeworlds Travel Agency series, including Adventure in the Floating Mountains, which was a 2023 World Book Day title. JAMIE was nominated for the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing.

L. D's new middle-grade fantasy series ARTEZANS launches in February 2024 with the first book Artezans: The Forgotten Magic.

L. D.'s books are published around the world in fifteen languages, and each book in the Strangeworlds trilogy has been awarded a Kirkus star - one of the most coveted designations in the book industry,
marking books of exceptional merit.

L. D. Lapinski lives just outside Sherwood Forest with their family, a lot of books, and a cat called Hector. L. D. first
Buy books on Amazon
Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) was born in Wexford on the South-East coast of Ireland in 1965, where he and his four brothers were brought up by his father and mother, who were both educators.

He received his degree from Dublin University and began teaching primary school in Wexford. He has lived and worked all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Italy. After the publication of the Artemis Fowl novels, Eoin retired from teaching and now writes full time. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.

Buy books on Amazon
David Walliams

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

David Walliams is an actor and writer best known for his work with Matt Lucas in the multi-award-winning sketch show Little Britain. His debut children's novel, The Boy in the Dress, was published in 2008 to unanimous critical acclaim and he has since developed a reputation as a natural successor to Roald Dahl.
Buy books on Amazon
Alexander Armstrong

An English actor, television and radio presenter, and singer, best known as one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller and as host of the BBC TV game show Pointless.
Buy books on Amazon
P.G. Bell

P.G. Bell is a native of south Wales, where he was raised on a diet of Greek mythology, ghost stories and Doctor Who. He's had all sorts of jobs over the years, from lifeguard to roller coaster operator, but all he's ever really wanted to do is write stories for a living. And now he does! He lives in Wales with his wife Anna and their two children.
Buy books on Amazon
Marissa Meyer

I live in Tacoma, Washington, with my husband and beautiful twin daughters. Represented by Jill Grinberg. Learn more about me and my upcoming books at http://www.marissameyer.com.

Buy books on Amazon
Jenny McLachlan

I have always loved reading and I studied English at university just so that I could read a bit more. Next I found my way into secondary teaching and discovered that I loved it too: I got to read more books, show off and hang out with very funny teenagers. What a great job!

Teaching English also encouraged me to write. Soon I had planned and started lots of different stories, but they were all abandoned and shoved to the back of a drawer. Then, one day, the plot for Flirty Dancing came together; Bea’s story was so alive it was like a film running in my head and I knew it was a story I would finish.

Over the next few years, various exciting events distracted me from Flirty Dancing: I got married, travelled the world, was chased by an angry ele
Buy books on Amazon
L.D. Lapinski

L. D. Lapinski is the best-selling author of JAMIE, Stepfather Christmas, and The Strangeworlds Travel Agency series, including Adventure in the Floating Mountains, which was a 2023 World Book Day title. JAMIE was nominated for the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing.

L. D's new middle-grade fantasy series ARTEZANS launches in February 2024 with the first book Artezans: The Forgotten Magic.

L. D.'s books are published around the world in fifteen languages, and each book in the Strangeworlds trilogy has been awarded a Kirkus star - one of the most coveted designations in the book industry,
marking books of exceptional merit.

L. D. Lapinski lives just outside Sherwood Forest with their family, a lot of books, and a cat called Hector. L. D. first
Buy books on Amazon
M.G. Leonard

M. G. Leonard is a writer of books, poems and screenplays. She has a first-class honours degree in English literature and an MA in Shakespeare Studies from Kings College London. She works as a freelance Digital Media Producer for clients such as the National Theatre, and Harry Potter West End, and previously worked as a Senior Digital Producer at the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House and Shakespeare’s Globe. She spent her early career in the music industry running Setanta Records, an independent record label, and managing bands, most notably The Divine Comedy. After leaving the music industry, she trained as an actor, dabbling in directing and producing as well as performing, before deciding to write her stories down. Maya lives in Br
Buy books on Amazon
Sarah Bowie

Sarah Bowie is an author and illustrator based in Waterford City, Ireland.
Buy books on Amazon
Laura Wood

Laura Wood is the winner of the Montegrappa Scholastic Prize for New Children's Writing and the author of the 'Poppy Pym' and 'Vote for Effie' middle-grade series and YA novels, A Sky Painted Gold and Under a Dancing Star.

She loves Georgette Heyer novels, Fred Astaire films, travelling to far flung places, recipe books, Jilly Cooper, poetry, cosy woollen jumpers, Edith Nesbit, crisp autumn leaves, Jack Gilbert, new stationery, sensation fiction, salted caramel, feminism, Rufus Sewell's cheek-bones, dogs, and drinking lashings of ginger beer.
Buy books on Amazon
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
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.’

Nadine has taught and performed internationally and across media, including BBC Scotland’s The Big
Buy books on Amazon
Pari Thomson

Pari Thomson is Editorial Director for picture books at Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Half Persian, half English, she lived in many places while she was growing up, including India, Pakistan, the USA, the UK and Belgium. She studied at Oxford University and now lives near the river in London, not far from Kew Gardens.
Buy books on Amazon
Janice Hallett

Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and cowrote the feature film Retreat. The Appeal is her first novel.
Buy books on Amazon
Philippa Leathley

Philippa Leathley grew up in East Yorkshire, spending summers near London with her eccentric grandparents and writing feverishly as soon as she could hold a pen. When not writing, she enjoys learning new languages, studying anything from historical fashion to shipwrecks, and is passionate about protecting the environment. She currently lives just outside Hull with her family and three weird and wonderful rescue cats, Bram, Lyra and Theo the Brave.

Her debut children’s book, INKBOUND: METICULOUS JONES AND THE SKULL TATTOO, is due to be published by HarperCollins 30th January 2025 in the UK and 28th January in the US. She’s represented by Hannah Sheppard at HS-LA.
Buy books on Amazon
Lizzie Huxley-Jones

Hello! Thanks for joining me in the 5 star recs zone. Please feel free to follow - I don't tend to add people back as I don't actually use Goodreads myself any more. I just come back here to pop down the recommendations that I post on Twitter and Instagram where I'm @littlehux so you're better off finding me there as I really don't use Goodreads much at all any more.

Official Bit:
Lizzie Huxley-Jones (they/them) is an autistic author and editor based in London. They are the author of the queer holiday rom-com Make You Mine This Christmas (2022) from Hodder Books, the summer romance Hits Different co-written with Tasha Ghouri (2024) from Hot Key Books, and Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend (2023) from Knights Of. They write joyful stories th
Buy books on Amazon
Sophie Anderson

Sophie Anderson grew up on the Welsh coast and now lives in the Lake District with her family. Her writing is most often inspired by folk and fairy stories, especially the Slavic tales her Prussian grandmother told her when she was young.

Across her bestselling novels, Sophie has won the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year Award and the Wales Book of the Year Award, and been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal twice, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award, the British Book Awards’ Children’s Fiction Book of the Year, the Andersen Prize and the Branford Boase Award.

Sophie’s books have been translated into over twenty-five languages, and The House with Chicken Legs has been adapted for stage by Les Enfants Terr
Buy books on Amazon
Simon Stephenson

Hello, good readers!

I am from Edinburgh in Scotland, but now reside in Los Angeles, California. I have had stopovers along the way in London and San Francisco. I’m a writer and screenwriter, and before I became a full-time writer I was a physician.

My new novel, ‘Sometimes People Die’ will be published in September 2022. It's a literary thriller set in a hospital in east London around the turn of the millenium.

I have written two other books. ‘Set My Heart To Five’ came out in 2020. The Washington Post review said that I might be ‘Vonnegut’s first true protege’. You’d better believe I have been dining out on that ever since, and will be for the rest of my days.

‘Let Not the Waves Of the Sea’, my memoir about losing my brother came out in 2012
Buy books on Amazon
Sibéal Pounder

Sibéal has written for publications including The Guardian, fashion trend forecaster WGSN, Vogue.com and The Financial Times, where she was the resident philanthropy columnist for the How To Spend It section for six years. She studied Modern History at St Andrews and Quentin Tarantino film at Yale.

Her bestselling debut Witch Wars has been translated into 10 languages so far and was shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award and the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize.
Buy books on Amazon
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.

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
Buy books on Amazon