Nikita Gill is an Irish-Indian poet with a world-wide fan-base, who has the attention of over 650,000 Instagram followers for poetry collections and plays that offer a largely female readership the chance to recognise the value of their own experiences. She has given a TEDx Talk and spoken at every major literary festival in the U.K.. She has been shortlisted for the Goodreads Choice Award in poetry three times, nominated for the YOTO Carnegie Medal and has recently made her first foray into music having written for Anoushka Shankar’s Sister Susannah and In Her Name. She has written for or been featured in The New York Times, The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Stylist Magazine, The Bookseller, Cosmopolitan, The Times of India, Eastern Eye and many more. Gill has written seven collections of poetry, and a novel in verse which highlights Hindu mythology.

Chaaya Prabhat is an illustrator and lettering artist from Chennai, India, currently working out of Goa. She has worked on a number of picture books, including The Culture of Clothes (Templar Publishing), The Best Diwali Ever (Scholastic), Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers (Charlesbridge Publishing) and Hide-and-Seek History: The Egyptians (Little Tiger Publishing). She’s previously worked with several clients such as Penguin, Hachette, Facebook and Google on digital illustration projects. She has previously received awards for her portfolio and projects from Behance and Adobe.

Jess loves all animals. She loves the natural world they live in, too. She thinks it is very important that we all work hard to protect the natural world, so she writes books about how we can do that. The books are mainly marketed at children, but Jess knows that it’s mostly the grown ups that need educating. She hopes that the wonderful children that read her books will be kind enough to educate the silly grown ups they meet about animals, the environment and what we can do to save them.

As well as writing, Jess works as a vet. She once ultrasounded a snow leopard and has also looked inside a crocodile’s stomach! She is sometimes seen on CBeebies talking about minibeasts and also works as a teacher for school groups that are interested in animals and the natural world.

Sol is a children’s book illustrator and graphic designer from Buenos Aires. Her illustrations are filled with details and beautiful colors focused on children’s products like books, puzzles, board books and memory games. Sol has worked for Airbnb, Pottery Barn Kids, Unicef and international magazines such as Oprah, Jamie Oliver, Wired and The Washington Post.

Carolina Búzio is an illustrator and occasional animator drawn to quirky characters and exciting colour combinations. She was born in the lovely seaside town of Porto, Portugal, and is currently living in artsy Berlin, Germany, with her partner (who is unfortunately allergic to cats or else she’d finally be the crazy cat lady her child-self always assumed she would one day be).

With a great memory for faces (but terrible for names, she apologises in advance) and objects with a personality, it makes sense that she illustrates children’s books for a living. The toughest but also her favourite part of the illustration process is the colouring stage: whenever she puts two odd colours together that go unexpectedly well, she gets butterflies in her stomach.

Barry grew up in Cornwall. He spent his early years mending pop-up books brought home from the library by his mum. Vast swathes of Sellotape were involved.

In the late 90s, Barry moved to London to study Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. By a twist of fate, he later secured an editorial job at Walker Books. He’s been editing children’s books ever since.

More recently, Barry has been writing picture books of his own. He loves the knotty puzzle of structuring a story over so few pages. Even better is the rush of excitement when a solution lands in the shower, or while walking the streets of South London. That’s a feeling worth its weight in gold.

Ged was born in Liverpool and as a child he was obsessed with drawing, listening to music and making up tunes.

In 2016, his story about a short-sighted dog, Douglas You Need Glasses! received rave reviews and became his breakthrough picture book.

Ged has since written and illustrated many books including Shark Dog! and A Fox Found a Box.

He lives in London with his partner Helen and their son Rex.

Matt Ralphs is a freelance writer of children’s fiction and non-fiction. While working for many years as an editor he helped other writers create novels, comics, and lavish art books, including special editions made from engraved metal, branded wood and demon skin. He lives on the Grand Union Canal in England on a boat he christened Nostromo because Alien is his favourite film.

Rui Ricardo is a Portuguese illustrator based in Porto where he studied graphic design and academic drawing at the University of Fine Arts.
His illustrations have been published in major American and British magazines and he has worked with many prominent international brands and publishers.
As an avid backpacker, he has spent years travelling across Asia, Europe and bits of Africa and South America. This triggered a personal project consisting of Travel Posters that’s been developing for over ten years. The collection now consists of over 100 different illustrations.
When he’s not drawing, you’ll find him building and painting cardboard houses with his 5 year old daughter Laura (she loves big presents and Ikea because of the boxes!), riding his bicycle or playing the banjo and the ukulele.

Clare Helen Welsh is a picture book writer who loves dreaming up stories for young readers and their families to enjoy. For many years she was a primary school teacher, which ignited her love of storytelling, reading and role-play. Clare lives in Devon with her husband, two children and her dog, Hope. When she isn’t imagining new worlds and creating characters, she enjoys walking on the beach and in the countryside and takes lots of inspiration from the natural world.