CHILDREN'S
AUTHORS
DAVID ALMOND is twice winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award. His first novel, Skellig, won the Whitbread Children's Award and the Carnegie Medal. His second, Kit's Wilderness, won the Smarties Award Silver Medal, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. The Fire-Eaters won the Whitbread, the Smarties Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He is now writing Mina's Book, a companion story to Skellig told from Mina’s point of view, for publication in 2010. David is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and innovative children's authors writing today, and his books are bestsellers all over the world. www.davidalmond.com
FLEUR BEALE has published a number of novels to great acclaim in her native New Zealand, including I Am Not Esther, which received an Honour Award in the New Zealand Children's Book Awards. A Respectable Girl, her new novel, is set in 1839 and moves from northern New Zealand to England where 15-year-old Hannah Carstairs voyages in search of news of her dead mother. Simon and Schuster publish it in the UK and Random House in New Zealand.
JENNY DOWNHAM’s no. 1 bestselling novel Before I Die was published by David Fickling Books, and sold in 26 languages. Narrated by 16-year-old Tessa, who knows she is dying from advanced leukaemia, it focuses on her to-do list before it is too late. The pared-back, wry style is anything but sentimental, and it makes the lyricism of her observations of the world she is losing, and the flashes of humour, all the more powerful. And, to Tessa’s deep surprise and joy, the boy next door turns out to be one of the most important things of all. "I don't care how old you are. This book will not leave you" - New York Times.
TOBIAS DRUITT is a pseudonym for Diane Purkiss and Michael Dowling, Oxford-based mother and young son. Their extraordinarily accomplished debut novel, Corydon and the Island of Monsters, is a retelling of the Greek myth of Medusa seen through the eyes of a young shepherd boy, Corydon and is the first of a trilogy. High adventure with a thorough grounding in classical myth, the stories take Corydon to Atlantis pre-cataclysm, then Troy as it falls.... Simon and Schuster publish in the UK and Knopf in the USA.
PAULINE FRANCIS is a new writer whose beautiful first novel Raven Queen evokes the 16th-century story of Lady Jane Grey, crowned Queen of England for nine days, but rewrites it as a love story. Raven Queen is published by Usborne, who also publish her new novel A World Away.
SALLY GARDNER won the 2005 Nestle Children’s Book Prize for her novel I, Coriander. The Red Necklace was published in 2007 to rapturous reviews and the sequel, The Silver Blade, in 2009. She is working on a new standalone novel The Memory Machine with Orion.
JULIE HEARN Julie’s first novel, Follow Me Down, was published in 2003 by OUP to uniformly excellent reviews, and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award. The Merrybegot, published in early 2005, is Julie’s second novel, set in 1645 in the west of England where witchhunts are real, but true magic comes from unexpected sources. Atheneum published it as a superlead title in the US under the title The Minister’s Daughter, with $100,000 marketing spend, 50,000 first printing. ‘Powerful and intriguing, Julie Hearn’s novel bewitches and beguiles from first to last.’ - Celia Rees. Ivy, the story of a pre-Raphaelite painter's model, is followed by Hazel whose feisty heroine is growing up in the London of Emily Pankhurst. The third and final part in this sequence, Rowan-the Strange, has WWII as its backdrop and has echoes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It has been longlisted for the Guardian Children’s Book Prize 2009. Julie’s new novel, Wreckers, has been signed up with OUP. www.julie-hearn.com
LIZ KESSLER’s entrancing first novel, The Tail of Emily Windsnap, about a girl who discovers she is half-mermaid, published by Orion in 2003, has been a massive international success, with rights sold in 21 countries. The sequel, Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep, was published in September 2004 and the latest Emily adventure is Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist. Her new series is based on a character called Philippa Fisher. www.lizkessler.co.uk
KATHERINE LANGRISH Katherine’s first novel, Troll Fell, was a huge hit on publication in 2004--‘a joy… told in vigorous, vivid prose, Troll Fell is…a marvellous, magical adventure,’ - The Times. The much-anticipated sequel, Troll Mill, was published in 2005 and the final part of the trilogy Troll Blood in 2007. Her novels have sold in many other countries. Her new stand-alone novel is Dark Angels. www.katherinelangrish.co.uk
GRAHAM MARKS is the author of many books for children. His novels for teenagers are published by Bloomsbury. Usborne published Kai-ro, his wonderful novel for younger readers, as a lead title in 2007.
His next title is I-Spy, an adventure story for 9-11 year-olds, set in Istanbul in the 1930s, for Usborne, and will be the start of a new series. He is now working on a new project for 10-12 readers. www.marksworks.co.uk
KATY MORAN is a graduate of Manchester University Creative Writing course. Her first novel Bloodline is a brilliant historical story set among the warring Anglo-Saxon tribes of early England.
Walker Books acquired world English rights, at auction. The sequel, Bloodline Rising, comes out in 2009.
NATASHA NARAYAN is writing a series of adventure mystery novels featuring the feisty heroine Kit Salter and her friends. The first, The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis, is published by Quercus and will be followed by The Maharajah's Monkey.
LINDA NEWBERY is the author of more than 30 books for children and young adults. The Shell House and Sisterland were both shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Set in Stone won the Costa Children’s Book Award in 2006. www.lindanewbery.co.uk
JOANNE OWEN has worked in the book trade as a buyer (for Books etc and Borders) and in children’s publishing (as Bloomsbury’s Children’s Marketing Manager). Set in turn-of-the-century Prague, Puppet Master, her first novel, is published by Orion.
ANDREW PRENTICE AND JONATHAN WEIL Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil are both in their twenties. The first volumes in their 10+ time travel and adventure series, Intelligencer, featuring Jack the Cutpurse and Dr Dee’s Elizabethan spy ring MI 12, will be published by David Fickling Books in 2010.
MEG ROSOFF’s stunning debut novel, How I Live Now, won the Guardian Children’s Award soon after it was published in 2004, and has also won the Michael Printz Award and the Boston Readers Club Prize in the US. It has been shortlisted for several other prizes, including the Whitbread and the British Book Awards, and the LA Times Book Award and has been optioned for film, hailed as ‘the best children’s novel for adults since 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ by Time Out, and sold in many other languages. Just In Case, her second novel, garnered superlative reviews and won the Carnegie medal. What I Was (Puffin UK and Viking US) appeared in 2008 and The Bride's Farewell is due out in August 2009. www.megrosoff.co.uk
LAUREN ST JOHN grew up in Zimbabwe and has written a wonderful first novel for 8-11 year olds, The White Giraffe, a magical story about a girl who is sent to southern Africa to stay with her grandmother on her game reserve, and finds that she has an extraordinary gift with the wild animals, and forms a special friendship with Tendai, her grandmother’s gamekeeper. It is the first of four novels to be published by Orion Children's Books. The second, Dolphin Song, was published in 2007 and the third, The Last Leopard, in 2008 and The Elephant's Tale in 2009. www.laurenstjohn.com
MATTHEW SKELTON’s first novel, Endymion Spring, set in medieval Mainz at the dawn of the Gutenberg era and ending in modern-day Oxford, where an ancient and powerful book has chosen the boy who will fulfil its destiny, sold at auction all over the world early in 2005. It is published by Puffin and Random House in the US. His new novel, The Story of Cirrus Flux, will be out in Summer 2009.
ANDREW STRONG is a headteacher in a tiny Welsh village primary school, and a wonderfully exciting new fiction writer for children. His first novel Oswald and the End of the World, part fantasy, part historical, is published by Scholastic. The next novel, Molehill Hotel, is published in Summer 2009.
ELEANOR UPDALE’s first novel, Montmorency, won the Smarties Silver Award in the 9-11 category in 2003 and the Blue Peter Award for 'The Book I Couldn’t Put Down' in 2005, and has won or been shortlisted for several other awards. The series continued with Montmorency on the Rocks, Montmorency and the Assassins and, the most recent, Montmorency’s Revenge. The books are with Scholastic US and UK and in translation around the world. www.eleanorupdale.com
JEANNE WILLIS is the author of many books for children, both illustrated (mainly by Tony Ross) for younger readers, and fiction up to late teenage. Her novel Naked Without a Hat (Faber, 2003; Random House US 2004) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. Puffin are publishing her Delilah Darling picture books and novels and Orchard her two Secret Fairy titles, illustrated by Penny Damm. The Bog Baby won the Book Trust Early Years Pre-School Award for 2008. The Goffins: Lofty and Eave, the first of four in a new series for 7-9 year olds, is out from Walker Books.
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