After many years spent living in California working at Lucasfilm, Susan Moore returned to the green and pleasant lands of England. She now lives with her husband and daughter near the Devil’s Punch Bowl in Surrey where she loves to walk her two, small, but really fast chippets. On rainy mornings when a damp mist descends on the landscape, and Susan is lost once again, she can easily imagine how Conan-Doyle was inspired to write Hound of the Baskervilles. As well as the world of the past she is fascinated by the potential of the near-future and its use of technology. She recently received an MA with distinction in Creative Writing from Kingston University.

Gerry Turley is an illustrator and printmaker. He was born and raised in Glasgow where he studied Illustration at the Glasgow School of Art, and then Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art. His illustrations are made by building layers of print and drawing to make distinctive images. He is known for his sensitive depiction of animals, often drawn on location – one of the most memorable drawing trips was to the Swiss Alps in an area where a bear had been spotted shortly before – exciting and a bit unnerving!

Harriet Lynas is an award-winning children’s book illustrator who lives in Cambridge with her husband and their son. She has always loved doodling since she was able to hold a pencil and decided to become an illustrator at the age of ten. After studying Visual Communication Design at University, Harriet worked as a graphic designer in the fashion industry before becoming a children’s book illustrator. When she is not drawing, she enjoys cooking exotic foods and country walking.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Philadelphia, Jannie studied at Parsons School of Design in New York. After working as a graphic designer and an art director at Nickelodeon, Scholastic, and TIME Magazine for Kids, she decided that illustration was her true calling. Jannie (also known as Chicken Girl) now specialises in illustrating for the children’s market, with her work appearing in both trade and educational books, magazines, toys, crafts and digital media. She lives with her husband and daughter in Boston.

Christine was born a little before midnight on New Year’s Eve in 1984. She has always loved books and as a child could be found trying her best to draw just like Beatrix Potter.

She went on to study Illustration for Children’s Publishing at the North East Wales School of Art and has been illustrating since she left in 2006. Christine has created illustrations for children’s books, cards, toys and clothing with companies based in the UK, US, France and Australia.

She lives and works in a Post Office in the Peak District with her partner Ste and Yorkshire terrier, Suzie.

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’.

Jarvis is the illustrator of Poles Apart and I’m In Charge. He did lots of different jobs before creating his first children’s book, including work as a bingo caller, a bouncy-castle painter, a record-sleeve designer and an animation director. He’s always doodled characters, and thinks that everything he’s done in the past has helped make him a better children’s picture book illustrator and writer…Maybe not the bingo calling…

Jarvis wants the books he creates to be very personal, and particularly loves the nature of children’s books, what they can do and how they can be kept and loved as little treasures.

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.

Felicity French has illustrated many colouring books for adults and children alike, including I Heart Colouring, Colour and Frame Nature, and more recently The Lion Nativity Colouring Book and Kids Unplugged Animal Adventures. She loves to draw animals, birds and flowers and has a great passion for pattern, especially Scandi and Paisley design! She lives with her husband, John, and they have just moved into an old property in the countryside, so any spare time is spent doing DIY!

Frann’s first picture book, The Journey Home, was published in 2012 and was shortlisted for both the Waterstones Children’s Prize and the Cambridgeshire ‘Read it Again’ book Prize.

In 2011, she became the first UK recipient of the ‘Sendak Fellowship’ and spent a month living with and learning from Maurice Sendak.

She is one fifth of the design group Zombie Collective who specialize in workshops and pop-up galleries. They have worked with clients such as Tate Britain, the House of Illustration, the Design Museum, the British Library and UCL Hospital, creating workshops for both adults and children.