Angela Keoghan is a former photographer turned illustrator from New Zealand. She spent much of her childhood surrounded by animals, drawing, reading, making huts and having adventures in the rural pastures ofthe Waikato. She graduated with a Bachelor of Media Arts with Honours in 2002 from WINTEC and since 2009 has been full time illustrating, working on projects ranging from editorial, product illustration, advertising and publishing. She loves texture and her whimsical illustration uses a mixture of media created on and off the computer. Angela lives in the countryside with her husband and business partner, Jayden, and their dog ‘Mr Woods’.

Since early childhood, Anastasia has been drawing, dreaming and inventing stories. She is very fond of reading and travelling, as well as plants and flowers. Now, after graduating from the Academy of Arts, she tries to learn about shape and colour, lightness and movement from nature. Anastasia makes illustrations for books, magazines and games. Books are her greatest love because they are doors that open up new magical and wonderful worlds. She creates most of her illustrations in digital art, trying to bring the feeling and warmth of traditional materials into them.
She is the 2018 winner of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair Silent Book Contest.

Caryl Hart is an award-winning children’s author who writes picture books and young fiction. She runs creative literacy workshops for schools, libraries, communities and festivals. The Girl who Planted Trees won Teach Early Years Best Picture Book Award 2022 and was chosen as one of the best books of 2022 by the Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho.

Meet the Oceans was one of Waterstones’ Best Books for Babies & Toddlers 2021 and Books for Topics’ Best EYFS Curriculum Support 2021, and Girls Can Do Anything was shortlisted for the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award 2019.

Her best-selling Princess series has sold over a quarter of a million copies, and her books are published in numerous languages all over the world.

Caryl lives in Sheffield with her family and loves walking in the hills, cycling and wild swimming.

Katrina has spent her life surrounded by books ever since her first visit to the library when she was tiny. She now lives in a house full of bookshelves fit to bursting, and continues to fill them with books that she has written.

She recently won Booktrust’s Story Time prize for her and Nick Sharratt’s picture book The Whales on the Bus.

When she’s not writing for children, she is cuddled up with one of her fluffy cats and a good book, or plucking cat hairs off her clothes.

Guilherme lives in Blumenau, in southern Brazil. In 2010, he won a national contest for new children’s book illustrators and has been working with editorial illustrations ever since. After illustrating many books for other authors, Guilherme started writing his own books in 2017. Guilherme’s work has been published worldwide and has received various accolades, including the Jabuti Award and the Golden Pinwheel Grand Award. Guilherme continues to seek ways to entertain and delight children through his art and stories.

Em Lynas is a children’s author with a love of silly poetry, magic, dragons and folklore. Em has been a shelf stacker, a shoe shop assistant, a primary school teacher, a mum, an educational publisher and now, an author of funny books. She lives by the seaside on the North East coast with her husband, Geoff, and although she did have pets when her children lived at home; hamsters, guinea pigs, a rabbit and a jar of stick insects, she is currently petless.

Louise lives and works in the UK. When she isn’t writing, she works as a freelance acting, life skills and performing arts tutor, teaching students of all ages, abilities and backgrounds.

Tom Froese is an award winning illustrator and teacher. He is passionate about making work that makes people happy. In his work, you will experience a flurry of joyful colours, spontaneous textures and quirky shapes.

As a commercial artist, Tom has worked for brands and businesses all over the world, including Yahoo!, Airbnb, and GQ France. The Castle the King Built is Tom’s second published picture book, the first being Whose Boat? by Toni Buzzeo (Abrams Appleseed, 2018).

Originally from the Toronto area, Tom graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design with a B.Des (honours) in 2009. He then moved to Vancouver, BC, where he began his creative career and eventually became a family man.

Tom now works from his home studio in the small village of Yarrow, about an hour’s drive east of Vancouver. He lives with his wife Amanda and daughters Nina and Marie – and a funny cat named Blueberry.

Ben Lerwill has been working as a freelance travel writer for over 15 years. His work has appeared in more than 50 national and international publications, from The Sunday Times to National Geographic Traveller. Ben’s passions include the outdoors, music, wildlife, running and reading. He is thrilled that, through children’s books, he can share his enthusiasm about the wider world with young readers. He’s at his happiest when he’s on a long walk and his children haven’t yet pinched all the snacks.

Sarah Walsh grew up in upstate New York. When she was little she was obsessed with animals. So much so that she wanted to be one. Her mom knew this and sewed her an assortment of costumes she could wear all year round. She was also obsessed with drawing and from a very small age knew in her heart she would be an artist someday. If….she worked hard enough and practised. Currently Sarah is an internationally published illustrator with several adult colouring books, children’s board books, activity books, and greeting cards under her belt. She lives with her family in Kansas City. Her work and other notions can be found at Sarahwalshmakesthings.com.

Andrew Donkin has sold over 10 million children’s books and graphic novels, worldwide. His graphic novel, Illegal (co-written with Eoin Colfer), was an international bestseller and has won or been nominated for over 40 book awards. Andrew has written for many global franchises, including Batman, Superman, Doctor Who, and Artemis Fowl. His non-fiction work includes biographies of Roald Dahl, William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein. He loves books, comics, and tea. Andrew lives near the river Thames in London with his family.

Libby VanderPloeg is an artist and illustrator living in west Michigan. She always loved drawing and, growing up, was surrounded by books and stories, as her mother was a storyteller and children’s librarian. On family road trips, she’d study the big atlases as they trekked from state to state, fascinated by all of the layers of information and iconography. After studying fine art in Chicago and working as a graphic designer, art director, and even a cheese monger in Brooklyn, she decided to focus on her lifelong love of drawing and illustration. Her obsession with maps resurfaced, now through her illustration work, drawing dozens of colorful cities across the globe.