T.K. Hall
Tim Hall is a former journalist who has written for various national newspapers and magazines. He spent two years in Bermuda, reporting for the Bermuda Sun, and has travelled extensively in South America. He now lives near Stroud in Gloucestershire with his wife and two daughters. In addition to writing, he works for the Stroud-based charity The Door, which supports disadvantaged young people and their families.
Mark Forsyth
Mark Forsyth was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present, and has never looked back. He is the author of several books on language, including The Illustrated Etymologicon, which was a Sunday Times number-one bestseller. Mark has also written about Christmas traditions and bookshops, and his TED Talk on language and politics ('What's a snollygoster?') has had over half a million views. He studied English at Oxford University, and lives in London.
Matthew Land
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Matthew Land grew up on a dairy farm in the Welsh hills, and read and drew almost compulsively. He no longer lives on the dairy farm, but continues to read and draw. He graduated from Falmouth College of Art in 2012 and has since illustrated a number of books for children. His client list includes Penguin, Oxford University Press, Blackwell's Bookshops and the SS Great Britain. Matthew lives in Edinburgh.
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Susannah Lloyd
Susannah Lloyd is the author of the picture books Who Ate Steve, Here Be Giants, Here Be Dragons, Oh Monty!, This Book Can Read Your Mind and The Terribly Friendly Fox. Her books have been translated into ten languages. Badgers Are Go! is her first foray into chapter books. Susannah loves reading stories - especially the ones you find in children's books - and libraries and bookshops are her happy place. Her books are inspired by old black-and-white movies, dusty stuffed animals in museums and all things small in the world. Susannah's favourite food is trifle and her favourite words are 'in cahoots' and 'hullabaloo'.
Nici Gregory
Nici Gregory is the author/illustrator of Where's Speedy, and illustrator of Oh Monty!, Nora and the Map of Mayhem and The Good Little Mermaid's Guide to Bedtime. She started drawing whilst in primary school, drawing in the margins of her exercise books. After studying graphic design in Hamburg, Germany, she went on to work as an in-house illustrator for a marketing firm in Sheffield. On realising her work in the margins (mostly animals in fancy clothes) continued to be her best work, Nici decided to leave the world of marketing for a full-time career in creating animal characters for children. She has never looked back. Nici's favourite words are 'skedaddle' and 'thingamajig'.
Linda Sargent
Some of the things that have happened to the “real” Tosh:
Picking flowers one summer in Finland, Sussex University for two degrees, teaching, learning, writing, telling stories, reading, selling ice creams and setting up a bookstall in a theatre. Learning to drive in a blue Mini named Mabel. Oh, and once sharing a lift with a Beefeater at a conference in the Tower of London…
And lots more, but most of all, talking and listening and sharing, having fun with the many friends along the way…
Leo Marcell
Hi, I’m Leo Marcell, a creator of cartoons, comics and the artist behind our very own Tosh’s Island! When I’m not exploring or baking cakes - you will find me at my desk, doodling away. I love to draw the world around us whether it’s the ocean, caves or forests. But most of all, I love seeing all the artwork created by the readers of The Phoenix comic, who are my biggest inspiration of all!
Louis Hill
Louis Hill is a writer and actor. As an actor, his credits include a wide variety of stage, screen and voiceover work. As a writer, he has written a number of plays and short films including his one-man show, Love and Tigers, which opened to sell out audiences and 5-star reviews for a limited run at the Hen and Chickens theatre. His short stories have been featured in a number of publications and have placed in several competitions. Let the Light In is his debut novel.
Andreas Schuster
Paul Duffield
Siobhan McKenna
Poqu
Tasneem Abdur-Rashid
Tasneem Abdur-Rashid is a British Bengali writer born and raised in London. A mother of two, Tasneem has worked across media, PR and communications both in the UK and in the UAE.She co-hosts the award-winning podcast Not Another Mum Pod and is also a phenomenal home cook. Tasneem's adult rom-com Finding Mr Perfectly Fine was published by Zaffre/ Bonnier in 2022, and her second adult novel The Thirty Before Thirty List published in 2024. Odd Girl Out is her YA debut.
Adam Beer
Doug Naylor
Doug Naylor is a British Emmy-award-winning television writer, Sunday Times bestselling novelist, and an award-winning TV director. He is best known as the co-creator (with Rob Grant) of the iconic sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf for which he wrote or co-wrote all 74 episodes. He penned the number one single, 'The Chicken Song' and is the author or co-author of three Red Dwarf novels. Sin Bin Island is his first children's novel.
Doug Naylor
Doug Naylor is a British Emmy-award-winning television writer, Sunday Times bestselling novelist, and an award-winning TV director. He is best known as the co-creator (with Rob Grant) of the iconic sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf for which he wrote or co-wrote all 74 episodes. He penned the number one single, 'The Chicken Song' and is the author or co-author of three Red Dwarf novels. Sin Bin Island is his first children's novel.
Emma Shevah
Emma Shevah is half-Thai and half-Irish. She was born and raised in London, but has travelled and lived in lots of countries. Emma studied English and Philosophy at university, and has an MA in Creative and Professional Writing. As well as being an author, she is Head of Literacy, an English teacher and a learning support teacher working with a range of neurodiverse students. Hailing from a neuro-atypical family herself, she has four children and has written middle-grade novels and books for younger readers. My Name is Jodie Jones is her YA debut.
Miranda Moore
Miranda Moore writes fiction and non-fiction and works as a freelance editor and writing coach. She won DFB and Arvon's Search for a Storyteller 2024 and the Wells Festival of Literature Book for Children Competition 2023. She is also a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, helping students with their writing. She sings in a covers band and loves wild places, good company and beautiful food. She lives with her family in the Scottish Borders. A Beautiful, Terrible Thing is her first novel.
Little Sculptures of Big Authors
Take a look at these! Artist Guy Reid has created mesmerising small-scale sculptures of four of our most mesmerising storytellers: Philip Pullman, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Nick Sharratt and Ian Beck.
Carved in lime wood, no more than two feet in height but extraordinarily life-like, with every tiny detail hand-painted, the figures are so realistic they seem – as Nick Sharratt says – ‘to be breathing’. Or dreaming their books, perhaps.
Meet the collection in the DFB galleries
If you want to know how Guy does it, watch the short film by Margot Donkervoort: Little Me: Making Philip Pullman.
Guy Reid is a British artist who was born in Johannesburg in 1963 and grew up in London and Shropshire. After having completed his BA in Politics and History at North London Polytechnic in 1984, he began training as a classical carver and restorer, going on to work for the world-renowned Spink Workshop (now Arlington Conservation), where he completed work for institutions as varied as the Metropolitan Museum New York, the Getty Museum California, Harewood House and the Sir John Soane Museum London. He is considered to be one of the finest living carvers. To find out more about Guy's work visit Guy's website.
Welcome to the independent DFB
We’re new – but we’ve been around for a while! For nearly twelve years DFB has been run as an imprint – first as part of Scholastic, then of Random House. Since the summer of 2013 we’ve been set up as an independent business – joining our separate but sister company, which publishes the new children’s comic The Phoenix, to form a DFB Storyhouse. Exciting times!
In our independent form we are continuing to publish the same sorts of books as before, and in the same sort of way – but with even greater enthusiasm and commitment.
We published our first titles as an independent company in the summer of 2014. We’ll let you know all about our new and exciting developments with announcements and information posted here and elsewhere. It’s the beginning, as I think someone once said, of a great adventure . . .
On this site – still developing – you’ll find information about all sorts of things, including some of the wonderful authors DFB has been associated with in the past. Although their books are published elsewhere we love to celebrate them here. You might be wondering why DFB has gone independent at all. Here are five reasons.
Freedom
Independence will give us the autonomy to follow our instincts and back our own judgments.
Flexibility
We’ll be able to act more quickly – to come to an immediate understanding with an author, or to get a bid in to an agent, or to react at once to developments in the market or a changes in technology.
This is really important. We think that our link with our authors will be closer and stronger. We value this relationship above all others. It’s the source of creative energy in a publishing house.
Attention to Sales
We want to give close, vigorous and thoughtful attention to every single book we publish to ensure that they all reach as many readers as possible, in the most compelling formats.
New Technologies
In a fast-changing digital world, we don't pretend to know all the answers. But we think that a small, nimble publisher unencumbered by weighty overheads and protocols is well-placed to take quick decisions, to spot new ways of publishing, to get something new off the ground.