Clare is an author, journalist and award-winning editor with considerable experience in consumer magazine publishing. She edited Coast magazine for six years (during which time the title won a PPA Award for magazine of the year and she was nominated for four BSME editor of the year awards), she has also edited the National Trust magazine and Grand Designs magazine.

Other titles she has worked for include Tatler, In Style, The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard and Esquire. Currently she is associate editor of The Simple Things magazine, writing and commissioning features on travel, homes and gardens.

She combines this with writing books - The National Trust's Book of the Coast, three guidebooks for the National Trust, and Hidden Villages of Britain for Batsford publishers. Clare has an interest in ancient sites, a love of trees, herbs and gardening, and an enthusiasm for folkore and for keeping the eight solar festivals that led her to druidry, which she continues to practise.

Maria Nilsson is a freelance illustrator based in London. Her illustrations are heavily influenced by the natural world, exploring various tactile qualities of colour, pattern and texture. She is the illustrator behind 50 Things to Do with a Penknife, 40 Knots and How to Tie Them and Pittipat's Saucer of Moon.