Vivian French is a highly acclaimed children's author who has written more than 250 books during the course of her career, including Caterpillar, Butterfly, The Tales from the Five Kingdoms series and Yucky Worms.

Her recent work includes the critically acclaimed picture book The Most Wonderful Thing in the World and junior fiction The Adventures of Alfie Onion, The Cherry Pie Princess and The Witches' Midnight Feast.

Vivian teaches on the illustration course at Edinburgh School of Art, and helped to found the mentoring scheme Picture Hooks for aspiring young illustrators. She lives in Edinburgh

Lauren O’Hara is an illustrator from the north of England. As a child she loved reading fairy tales, painting insects and listening to her grandmother’s stories. She studied art and illustration at Kingston University and then designed window displays and props for films.

Lauren’s career as an illustrator began when she and her sister, Natalia worked together on a picture book, Hortense and the Shadow. This was published in 2017 and followed in 2018 by The Bandit Queen. Lauren lives in a converted church in Dublin, Ireland with her partner, their cat Ida and assorted ghosts.