Harriet Whitehorn grew up in London, where she still lives with her husband and three daughters. She has studied at Reading University, the Architectural Association and The Victoria and Albert Museum and has always worked in building conservation. She currently works for English Heritage.

Violet and the Pearl of the Orient was her first children’s book and the first in a series, followed by Violet and the Hidden Treasure, and Violet and the Smugglers.

Katherine Woodfine is the author of The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow and sequels.

She previously worked at Book Trust, ran the YA Literature Convention, and now hosts the children’s book radio show Down the Rabbit Hole.

Helen Moss is the author of many best-loved books for children. She lives near Cambridge with her family-including a menagerie of dogs, hens, gerbils, and lizards. When not writing, she can be found taking the dogs for long walks, climbing trees, playing badminton and, whenever possible, climbing up or skiing down mountains.

Caroline's Roman Mysteries books were first published in 2001 and have since sold over a million copies in the UK alone, and been translated into fourteen languages.

The series was televised by the BBC in 2007 and 2008 with ten half hour episodes. Filmed in Tunisia, Bulgaria and Malta, it was the most expensive BBC children's TV series to date.

Caroline says: "I want to know everything about the past, especially the exciting things. Also the sounds, smells, sights and tastes. I write historical novels because nobody has invented a Time Machine. And I write for kids because 11 is my inner age."

Julia Golding is the award-winning author of numerous books for children and adults, including The Diamond of Drury Lane, winner of both the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

Her Jane Austen-themed podcast 'What Would Jane Do?' offers a 19th century take on modern life.

Kate Pankhurst illustrates and writes from her studio in Leeds with her spotty dog, Olive.

She loves a good story, the funnier the better and gets her best ideas by doodling in hers sketchbook; because even quick wonky drawings can spark ideas for amazing plots.

As a child Kate spent most of her time drawing silly characters and thinking up funny things for them to do, she feels very lucky to now do this as her job.

Sally Nicholls was born in Stockton-on-Tees, just after midnight, in a thunderstorm. She spent most of her childhood trying to make real life as much like a book as possible.

Her first book, Ways to Live Forever, won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2008 and in 2015 her book An Island of Our Own was shortlisted for the Costa children's prize. Sally lives in a little house in Oxford, writing stories and trying to believe her luck.

Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, by this time a persistent friend had finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of Fly By Night, her first children's novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. Known for her beautiful use of language, she has since written many critically acclaimed novels, including A Skinful of Shadows, Verdigris Deep, Cuckoo Song, and the Costa Award-winning The Lie Tree.

Elen Caldecott graduated with an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University and was highly commended in the PFD Prize for Most Promising Writer for Young People.

Before becoming a writer, she was an archaeologist, a nurse, a theatre usher and a museum security guard. Elen's debut novel, How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant, was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Prize and longlisted for the 2010 Carnegie Medal.

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in an Oxford college, across the road from the house where Alice in Wonderland lived. She has been making up stories all her life.

When she was twelve, her father handed her a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and she realised that she wanted to be either Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie when she grew up. When it occurred to her that she was never going to be able to grow her own spectacular walrus moustache, she decided that Agatha Christie was the more achievable option.

She spent her teenage years at Cheltenham Ladies' College, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she'd get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn't). She went to university, where she studied crime fiction, and then worked in children's publishing. She is now a full-time writer.

Robin now lives in London with her pet bearded dragon, Watson.

Clementine Beauvais writes for both the UK and French market. Her books written in English include the Sesame Seade series (Hodder) and the Royal Babysitters series ( Bloomsbury) and her bestselling French book, The Three Piglettes, will be published by Pushkin Press in 2017.

She is an award-winning author in France and In Paris with You (French title Songe a la Douceur) has been in the bestseller charts since it was published, selling 30,000 copies in the first three months. Clementine lives and works in York, UK.