Robin Boyden
Sophie Burrows
Gill Lewis
Gill has adored animals for as long as she can remember. From building a mini hospital for insects in her garden as a child, to working as a vet in the wilds of Africa, her life has been full of fascinating wildlife adventures. Gill lives in Somerset with her family and their pets, which include dogs, chickens, and a rescued Shetland pony. She dreams up stories in her treehouse, surrounded by squirrels and plates of biscuits. Gill's previous titles include Sky Hawk, White Dolphin, Sky Dancer and The Closest Thing to Flying, and have won and been shortlisted for numerous awards. A Street Dog Named Pup is the first book that she has also illustrated herself. Find out more at gilllewis.com or by following @gill_lewis on Twitter.
Lucas Rocha
Lucas Rocha is a librarian from Rio de Janeiro, but lives in São Paulo. He splits his time writing and working at a public library. Where We Go From Here is his first novel.
Bec Barnes
Bec Barnes is a children's book illustrator and author living in Cambridgeshire.
She has worked in primary teaching and toy product design as well as illustrating commercially for educational resources. In 2018, she completed an MA in illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.
Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve grew up in Brighton. He has been writing stories since he was five years old, but the first one to be published was Mortal Engines which won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and Blue Peter Book Award. Philip has also provided cartoons and jokes for many books, including Horrible Histories, and co-created young fiction with illustrator Sarah McIntyre.
Yasmin Sheikh
Yasmin Sheikh is an artist from the Netherlands. She has a passion for world building and comics, and designs characters for animation, video games and online/print comics. Yasmin also works with ceramics and textiles, and her work has been displayed in shows and exhibits worldwide.
Carlie Sorosiak
Carlie Sorosiak is the bestselling author of I, Cosmo; My Life as a Cat and two novels for young adults. She teaches creative writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and their American dingo.
Katie Walker
Katie Walker is an award-winning illustrator and designer based in sunny Brighton, UK. Katie has had a varied career, working on textile design and children’s books, and has also created artwork for a dog-themed board game.
Gillian Cross
Gillian Cross is the bestselling author of The Demon Headmaster, and has won the Carnegie Medal, Whitbread (now Costa) Children's Book Award and Nestlé Smarties Prize. She also spent eight years on the committee advising the government about public libraries, and she enjoys orienteering and playing the piano.
Alan Snow
Alan Snow is the award-winning author of Here Be Monsters, which was adapted into the animated film The Boxtrolls and nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. As well as writing and illustrating books for children, Alan has designed an ice cream parlour, drawing décor inspiration from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Julia Green
Julia Green is an author of over twenty novels and stories for children and young adults. She has worked as a publicity assistant for a publisher, a library assistant, an English teacher, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University.
Alex Latimer
Alex Latimer is an award-winning South African writer and illustrator, who lives in Cape Town. His picture books have been translated into dozens of languages, and he is always working on (at least) one picture book and novel at a time.
Anna Terreros-Martin
Anna is passionate about animals and wildlife, finding peace and magic in the natural world. She received a first class degree in Illustration from Sheffield Hallam University and a Masters in Children's Book Illustration from Cambridge School of Art. Anna is bilingual in English and Spanish and enjoys visiting her family and finding inspiration in Bilbao, in northern Spain. The Friendly Mammoth is her debut picture book as author/illustrator.
Melinda Salisbury
Melinda Salisbury is a three-time Carnegie nominated, bestselling author, whose first novel The Sin Eater's Daughter was the bestselling UKYA debut of 2015. Her other books include the State of Sorrow duology, Hold Back The Tide, The Way Back: A Seasonal Guide to Connecting With Nature and the collaborative novel Floored (co-written with six other YA authors, including fellow DFB author Lisa Williamson).
Melinda has been nominated and shortlisted for copious awards, including the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, YA Book Prize, Branford Boase Award and Carnegie Medal, and her books have been published in 15 countries to date.
She lives on the East Sussex coast and is a passionate amateur naturalist.
Dave McKean
Dave McKean is an illustrator, artist, graphic designer, photographer, filmmaker and musician. He has illustrated all of SF Said's novels, as well as books by David Almond and Neil Gaiman. Dave was a concept artist for two Harry Potter films, and has directed three feature films including The Gospel of Us starring Michael Sheen.
Nic Aubury
Nic Aubury has worked in advertising and teaching; he started writing poems by mistake. His poems have been featured in a Penguin anthology, on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour and in Sophie Hannah's novel The Carrier, published by Hodder. One of Nic's poems for the Carcanet anthology, New Poetries VI, was chosen as Carol Rumens' Poem of the Week in the Guardian. Nic lives with his wife and their sons.
Thiago de Moraes
Thiago de Moraes spends most of his time in a tiny shed at the bottom of his garden, writing and illustrating books, comics and bits of old cardboard boxes. He enjoys telling all sorts of stories, from picture books to non-fiction. His highly illustrated Myth Atlas, a guide to myths and legends, has been translated into 18 languages. Thiago has won the Sheffield Children's Book Award, been longlisted for the Klaus Flugge Prize and twice nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal. His comic Age of Stone is published in the weekly story comic, The Phoenix.
Thiago is 90% beard, dangerously fond of bacon and lives in England with his wife, children and a pet tortoise called Nibbles.
Lindsay Turnbull
Lindsay Turnbull is Professor of Plant Ecology at the University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford. She loves teaching and has been a secondary school science teacher as well as Director of Undergraduate Biology Teaching. She has published scientific papers on a wide range of topics, including plant ecology, interactions between legume plants and their nitrogen-fixing bacteria and plastic pollution on remote islands. Her favourite animal is (probably) the sea hare. Biology: The Whole Story is her first book.
Cécile Girardin
Dr Cécile Girardin is a scientist and an artist. As an artist, she is passionate about illustrating science stories. Cécile has produced murals, animations and a wide range of illustrations for UNFCCC, UN Biodiversity, IIED, Oxford University Press, the Global Canopy Programme, the Sumatran Orangutan Society and the British Ecological Society, to name a few.