Margery Winifred Williams was born in London in 1881. During her lifetime she lived in England, America and Italy and wrote numerous books for adults and children. Her most famous book, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real, was published in1922.
Daniela Sosa graduated from the Cambridge School of Art with an MA in children’s book illustration. When not illustrating, she enjoys nature walks, old pubs, and crafty projects. Originally from Romania, Daniela Sosa now lives in Cambridge, England.
Ebony Glenn has illustrated many popular picture books, including Not Quite Snow White written by Ashley Franklin. She lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia.
Based in Vietnam, Xuan Le was born in Ho Chi Minh City. She studied fashion and graphic design and has many years of experience working in children’s publishing. Xuan enjoys travelling, exploring nature, reading, and creating miniature models or moulding clay with her niece. The joyful reactions and curious questions from her niece about her surroundings inspire Xuan to illustrate how things work in her books, engaging other young readers and nurturing their sense of exploration. One of her favourite activities is sharing hot chocolate while reading stories with the children in her family.
Tim has been working as an illustrator for over forty years. He graduated from Kingston Polytechnic in 1983 and soon after joined the art department at i-D magazine. With a strong sense of design and a love of mark-making, texture and colour his bold illustrative work led to regular magazine commissions. His career in children’s publishing started in 2006, with the publication of Our Big Blue Sofa, which won the Cambridgeshire Book Award. In 2008 he won the Booktrust Best Emerging Illustrator Award, for his book Here Comes Frankie. This was followed in 2009 by WOW! Said the Owl which has become an international pre-school favourite.
He has since combined his love of art and music by illustrating classic songs. These include What a Wonderful World, Singing in the Rain, Moon River and Winter Wonderland all of which have been sung by Gregory Porter for CBeebies, Book at Bedtime. Amazing Frogs illustrated by Tim and written by Martin Jenkins won the School Library Association Information Book Award in 2016 and more recently, Tim’s picture book Hope is the Thing with Feathers based on the poem by Emily Dickinson won him the Best Illustrator Moonbeam Award, 2024 (US).
When not at his desk you’ll find him in the garden, in the kitchen or on the dancefloor!
Frances Stickley grew up in Nottingham and Norwich, where she spent much of her time making up poems and dressing up her dog. She is a trained children’s literacy specialist and a primary school teacher who is happiest when she is covered in paint or stuck in a book. In 2017, Frances was the winner of the Bloomsbury and National literacy trust short story prize 2017. She lives with her family and a big-eared dog called Babbage. When she is not writing, you’ll probably find her in a forest playing dragons with her daughters.
Matt Brown is an author and broadcaster based in the UK. He has written eight books for children, including Mutant Zombies Cursed My School Trip which won the FCBG Children’s Book Award in 2020. Before dyeing his hair grey for fashion reasons, Matt presented on some of the UK’s most popular TV shows and he has been on the radio a lot, hosting shows and making documentaries. He is a passionate promoter of reading for pleasure in schools as well as an advocate of saving public libraries.
Matt is not considered dangerous (unless you get him talking about either his favourite trousers or Manchester United). Chats with him on either of these subjects may lead to death-by-boredom. Also, he does NOT look good in hats.
Flavia Sorrentino lives and works as a freelance illustrator in Rome, where she grew up.
She loves her city and the figure of speech, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, which inspires her each day to seek new ways of communication and expression. She has worked hard on her technique which has taken her across the globe, from France to America and beyond! She has a true passion for Toulouse Lautrec, poetry, historical costume, typography, Tina Turner and tomato sauce!
Alex Barrow is Art Director for the popular science and arts themed children’s magazine OKIDO, as well as a children’s books illustrator. His first book for children, A Possum’s Tail, was published in 2014 and was quickly nominated for the 2015 Cilip Kate Greenaway Medal. He is the award-winning illustrator of the series If I had a pet, written by poet Gabby Dawnay. The first title, If I had a Dinosaur, won the ‘Made for Mums’ Silver Award. In his spare time, Alex plays the accordion in his band MALPHINO!
Ross Collins’s primary 1 teacher, Mrs Spears, told his parents that he should go to art school. 13 years went by until he was finally ‘old enough’ to get into the Glasgow School of Art. Can you believe that? – 13 years. On graduating he won the Macmillan Prize for his first picture book. Since then he’s illustrated over 100 books for children and written a few of them too. Several of them have won enormous glittering awards which he keeps in a box in Latvia. Ross’s book The Elephantom was recently adapted into a critically acclaimed play by those clever people at the National Theatre who made that War Horse thing. When he’s not creating children’s books he enjoys working on character development for animation studios like Laika and Disney. He also likes walking in the Scottish glens with his dog Hugo, who is an idiot, and his partner Jacqui and son Ridley, who are not.
Ben is a bestselling wildlife writer who still can’t quite believe that being a nature nerd is actually what he does for a living. After studying at the University of Cambridge he became an editor of children’s non-fiction, then worked at BBC Wildlife Magazine, where he went in search of everything from leafcutter ants to whale sharks and met many of his heroes in conservation and natural-history TV. After that Ben became a full-time writer. A massive fan of libraries, he loves discovering cool facts about weird and wonderful species. He keeps chickens and used to be a beekeeper. His top tip? Never be sick in your snorkel.