Janina Ramirez is a cultural historian who teaches at the University of Oxford. She went to school in Slough, England, is Polish and Irish, and married to a Spanish Scot. Janina fell in love with history on a visit to Hampton Court Palace in London when she was seven years old. Seeing a doorstep worn down by thousands of feet walking on it across centuries made her fascinating by people of the past.

Janina has written many books, some for adults and some for children. With a love of storytelling, she finds the best inspiration comes from looking back at the stories, people and ideas that inspired humans hundreds and thousands of years ago. Janina also presents documentaries on television and radio, which allows her to travel the world. But she is happiest at home with her family, four cats, three chickens and two hamsters.

Johnny Dyrander is an illustrator based in Stockholm, Sweden. He was born and raised above the Arctic circle in northern Sweden and grew up surrounded by reindeer and northern light. He moved to Stockholm in his early twenties and began studying at various art schools. He’s been working as an illustrator since he finished his studies at the University College of Arts, Crafts & Design in Stockholm.

When he’s not spending time in his office illustrating, Johnny likes to travel, spend time with his family or drive down to his house in southern Sweden, pick up a hammer and saw and pretend to be a carpenter. He builds things in wood with quite mixed results.

Margarita Kukhtina has loved drawing and painting for as long as she can remember. After graduating as a Master of Fine Arts, Margarita worked as a graphic designer, creating personal projects in her spare time that helped her find her true passion in illustrating children’s books. She works in mixed media, combining traditional and digital techniques to create playful and atmospheric illustrations.

Clare was a graphic designer for many years, creating packaging for Marks and Spencer and Boots, amongst others. For the last decade she has worked as a collage artist and has built up a loyal fanbase on Instagram with over 120k followers. She has published a number of paper-craft books, both for adults and children, including Animal Parade (Design for Today). Clare has four (now grown-up) children and lives on the sunny Kent coast with her husband and their dachshund, Otis. Instagram: @clareyoungs

Camilla Reid has written, conceived and edited children’s books for over twenty years.

Her titles for Nosy Crow as an in-house author include the Pip and Posy series (illustrated by Axel Scheffler), the Bizzy Bear series, (illustrated by Benji Davies), and the Felt Flaps series, (illustrated by Ingela P Arrhenius). Her titles for other publishers include The Littlest Dinosaur and the Naughty Rock (illustrated by Michael Foreman, Bloomsbury), the Seriously Cute series (illustrated by Katherine Lodge, Bloomsbury) and the Lulu series, (illustrated by Ailie Busby, Bloomsbury).

Lou Peacock loves words, stories and poems and has nearly thirty years of experience in children’s publishing. She is Nosy Crow’s Publishing Director at Large for Picture Books, and her own stories have been published in nearly 20 languages. Lou’s previous poetry anthology – the highly-acclaimed A Whale of a Time, illustrated by Matt Hunt – was a Waterstones Book of the Year in 2023 and also The Times book of the week. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and son and their small black fluffy dog called Lyra.

Angie was born into a big unruly family in Kent. Ever since she was little, all she ever wanted to do was to draw and paint and she still can’t quite believe her luck that she’s now allowed to do this all day and call it her ‘job’. Apart from illustrating picture books, Angie works with companies around the world to create illustrations for greeting cards, games, toys, puzzles, calendars and clothing. In 2017 she set up the brand PlanetCat® to license a range of her popular cat illustrations from her Instagram account: @angierozelaar. Angie and her family are now based in France, where they live in an old Normandy farmhouse alongside a growing menagerie of rescue animals, including cats, chickens and donkeys.

Nick grew up in the UK on a diet of David Attenborough documentaries and hand-me-down Sega games before reading ecology at Leeds University. He moved to beautiful Bristol to research the ancient mammals that lived during the time of the dinosaurs, before he wrote a PhD in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.
He worked at the BBC Natural History Unit before science-ing at the Zoological Society London (on venomous mammals and Indonesian biodiversity) and University College London, where he occasionally teaches. He now works at the Natural History Museum, London. His favourite animals are lowland streaked tenrecs, and he has an aversion to cobras (after one very nearly bit him on his bottom when he wasn’t paying attention).

Gavin was born in Salisbury, England. He grew up in the Dorset countryside where, as a young child, he would often be found covered in mud at the bottom of the garden, holding up a grass snake or some other interesting creature to draw.
Gavin studied Natural History Illustration at University and later went on to enter the world of character design and children’s illustration.
He now lives with his family in Somerset and when he’s not working, he loves being on two wheels, especially his old Triumph motorbike. He also enjoys rock pooling and fossil hunting with his children, and the occasional beer.

Tracey Turner has written lots of books for children, including How Many Mice Make an Elephant, The Curious Book of Lists, Exploding Beetles and Inflatable Fish, and more than 80 other titles. Her work has been published in over 20 languages and many of her books have gone on to become best-sellers. She lives in Bath, southwest England with Tom and their son, Toby, and Wellington the dog, and works as a writer and editor.

Charlotte and Adam met in Zanzibar working with Voluntary Services Overseas. Charlotte’s house was near the sea – perfect for swimming with dolphins and hanging out with bush babies. Adam lived in a rainforest, where he spent his time playing the guitar or cooking egg and chips. Since then, Adam and Charlotte have made up lots of songs and stories together. Walking to school with their children, playing games such as I’m Thinking of an Animal, led to lots of story ideas and their first books with Nosy Crow.