Katie Saunders graduated in 2001 from the university of Central Lancashire in Preston, England, with a degree in Illustration. Over the years, Katie has worked for many publishers creating children’s books. She has also written and designed her own baby books. Katie works with many greetings card companies and has also worked on toy designs. Mostly, Katie works with hand-drawn pen, collage, and computer-aided design, although over the years she has worked in all mediums. Katie lives in her hometown of Kent with her partner, Graham, her son, Archie, and her little girl, Olive Honey. They also have two cats named Dizzy and Pumpkin. Katie works in a little studio at the bottom of her garden, which her father built for her. She has never been happier.

Stephanie Taylor is a British-born author of Jamaican heritage. Married to Michael, she has two amazing grown-up children, Sîan and Miles. Stephanie has worked in primary education for over 20 years at the same school in South East London.

Reading and writing books for children is Stephanie’s passion – if she can use this to encourage children to read then she feels like she has achieved something wonderful.

Jade was born in North Carolina and grew up in a tiny Michigan town. After an impassioned childhood spent drawing dragons and cat ladies, she traveled to SCAD Savannah to get a BFA in Illustration. In 2018, Jade left her job of 7 years as a staff children’s apparel artist to freelance full time. She currently lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband, greyhound, and 4 cats (including two naked ones!) When she’s not drawing, Jade can usually be found curled up with her cats and a really good book.

Flavia Sorrentino lives and works as a freelance illustrator in Rome, where she grew up.
She loves her city and the figure of speech, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, which inspires her each day to seek new ways of communication and expression. She has worked hard on her technique which has taken her across the globe, from France to America and beyond! She has a true passion for Toulouse Lautrec, poetry, historical costume, typography, Tina Turner and tomato sauce!

Matt Brown is an author and broadcaster based in the UK. He has written eight books for children, including Mutant Zombies Cursed My School Trip which won the FCBG Children’s Book Award in 2020. Before dyeing his hair grey for fashion reasons, Matt presented on some of the UK’s most popular TV shows and he has been on the radio a lot, hosting shows and making documentaries. He is a passionate promoter of reading for pleasure in schools as well as an advocate of saving public libraries.

Matt is not considered dangerous (unless you get him talking about either his favourite trousers or Manchester United). Chats with him on either of these subjects may lead to death-by-boredom. Also, he does NOT look good in hats.

Born in Warwickshire, Richard Jones has been living and working in Devon for over 20 years. After leaving university with a first class degree in graphic design and illustration, he stayed on a little longer to complete a PhD.

He spent several years working in a busy children’s library, issuing and shelving other artists’ picture books, before one day wondering if it wasn’t about time he had a proper go at creating one or two himself!

Richard now writes and illustrates from the smallest room in his home. Across the roof tops of Exeter, and between the rounded Devon hills, he can just about make out the distant sparkling sea.

James Lancett is a UK based illustrator, storyboard artist and yellow sock lover! As a child growing up in Cardiff he was obsessed with cartoons, video games and all things fantasy. As he grew up and became a lot more beardy these inspirations held strong and so he moved to London to study BA Illustration and Animation at Kingston University. This degree opened the door to a job he had dreamt of ever since he was a kid and he now works as an illustrator and storyboarder for cartoons.