FELICITY BRYAN

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. 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 outstanding debut novel Before I Die was published by David Fickling Books and sold in 18 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 will also publish her next novel A World Away.

SALLY GARDNER won the 2005 Nestle Children’s Book Prize for her novel I, Coriander. Her most recent novel is The Red Necklace, published in 2007 to rapturous reviews. The sequel, The Silver Blade, is due out in 2009.

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.  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 19 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. www.katherinelangrish.co.uk

GRAHAM MARKS is the author of many books for children. His novels for teenagers are published by Bloomsbury. Usborne are publishing Kai-ro, his wonderful new novel for younger readers, as their lead title.

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.  She is writing a sequel, Bloodline Rising.

NATASHA NARAYAN is writing a series of adventure mystery novels featuring the feisty heroine Kit Salter and her friends. Quercus will publish the first in 2009.

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, will be published by Orion in May 2008.

ANDREW PRENTICE AND JONATHAN WEIL  Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil are both 26. The first volumes in their 10+ time travel and adventure series, Intelligencer, will be published by David Fickling Books in 2009. The authors met at Eton and edited the school magazine together. They are now working with David Fickling on his highly anticipated new comic strip magazine, The DFC.

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, has garnered superlative reviews and won the Carnegie Medal. Meg’s picture book for 3 to 5-year-olds, Meet Wild Boars, illustrated by award-winning illustrator Sophie Blackall, is published in the US as a superlead title by Henry Holt and by Puffin Books in the UK. Her new novel is What I Was, is published by Puffin UK and Viking US and is on the Carnegie 2008 shortlist. 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, will be published in 2008 .

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.

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. Scholastic have world rights in a two-book deal.

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 continues apace, 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.  She is writing a series of novels about a boy, George, who meets the Goffins who live in the loft of his grandmother's house.  Walker acquired world rights at auction for an initial four novels.