Vikesh is a Creative Director with a background in design who has worked in advertising for over 18 years. He loves exploring the past and retelling the somewhat strange stories from his childhood, and is passionate about accurate cultural representation in children’s books. He lives in East London with his wife and co-author, Donna, their two boys and their dog.
Born in Sri Lanka, raised in Scarborough and now living in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and three cats, Salini started drawing the moment she could first pick up a pencil and hasn’t stopped since. Now she gets to make art for picture books, her life-long dream!
Raquel Catalina is a Spanish illustrator. As a child, any surface was a canvas for her art: wallpaper, school desks, book margins – even her own skin! Today, little has changed, except for the wallpaper.
Raquel studied Fine Arts in Madrid. Nowadays she mainly illustrates children’s books. She has been shortlisted to exhibit her work at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair as well as in México, Portugal and Spain.
Fiona Longmuir was born in Paisley, Scotland. Shortly after, she picked up a pencil and never really put it back down. She writes stories about stubborn, oddball kids, having had a lot of personal experience in this area. Fiona now lives in the Irish countryside with her brilliant partner.
Camilla Sucre, a Trinidadian-American artist who resides in Baltimore, has found a different kind of home in narrative illustration. Interested in illustration since she was a child, her dreams are finally coming true as she loves to explore new avenues of artmaking and illustration and new stories to tell.
Camilla also has a passion for film and a natural love of movies and hopes she can one day express that in her work. Her favourite film is currently ‘The Red Shoes’, an old movie – which is very fitting because she loves old things!
Jason Rohan lives in west London with his wife and five children. When he was 16, he talked his way into an internship at Marvel Comics in New York, where he sold his first story; later he taught English in Japan for five years. He currently works as a mobile telecoms project engineer, building the networks of the future.
Dr Punam Krishan is a GP. She has always been fascinated by people’s stories and finds a lot of joy in helping others feel better. From teeny tiny babies all the way to the grannies and grandpas, Dr Krishan is there to make sure her patients as are as healthy as they can be! As well as science, Dr Krishan also loved drama and English at school and so years after becoming a doctor, she used those interests to make medicine even more exciting for herself by working as a TV doctor, doing radio shows, having her own podcast and even writing a book in order to help millions of people feel better, live healthier lives and feel inspired about their health and wellbeing.
When she is not working, Dr Krishan loves spending her time with her husband, her two kids and her dog called Simba. They spend their weekends finding new adventure trails in the beautiful Scottish outdoors. Dr Krishan loves dancing and it doesn’t matter where she is, if music comes on – she will embarrass her kids and dance like nobody is watching!
Sahar Haghgoo was born and raised in Iran, though she now lives in London. She studied graphic design and illustration at the University of Tehran and loves drawing and nature.
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
Anne-Kathrin Behl, born in 1983, has illustrated and written many children’s books since 2009. With her mother having a bookstore, she has always loved children’s books and, as soon as she could draw and write, Anne made her own little books and wished to become a professional children’s book illustrator. She studied Illustration at the HAW in Hamburg and later moved to Celle, a little town in northern Germany, where she now lives with her husband and her two sons.
William Petty is a children’s author and editor living in Hackney. When he’s not trying to make complex things simple for kids, he enjoys walking up hills, learning odd languages, looking at animals, travelling on trains, arguing about traffic on the internet, and karaoke.
Kate Petty was an outstanding editor and author of children’s books, who tragically died of cancer in 2007. Kate was the author of both fiction for children and a number of novelty and pop-up books, including the ground breaking The Great Grammar Book, illustrated by Jennie Maizels, the first in an innovative non-fiction series which was translated into 12 languages.
Nosy Crow will reissue Kate’s celebrated gardening series, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, beginning with Sam Plants A Sunflower in 2022.
Kate had an extraordinary ability both to create characters and to present facts and complicated principles to children in a way that continues to be accessible and fun. Alongside her own writing she commissioned fiction and non-fiction titles for the Eden Project.