Berlie Doherty has written many books for young people and has twice won the Carnegie Medal – for Granny Was a Buffer Girl and Dear Nobody.

Her other titles include Spellhorn, Daughter of the Sea, Willa and Old Miss Annie (Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal) and the anthology Tales of Wonder and Magic. She also writes poetry and plays.

She lives in Yorkshire.

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.

Michelle Harrison was born in 1979 and grew up in Grays, Essex. She has a degree in illustration, and is a former Waterstone’s bookseller and assistant editor at Oxford University Press. She now writes full time and has a son, Jack, and two cats.

Her first novel, The Thirteen Treasures, won the Waterstones’ Children’s Book Prize, has been sold in over sixteen countries and was followed by The Thirteen Curses and The Thirteen Secrets. She has also published Unrest, a stand-alone ghost novel for teens and is now working on a second young adult novel. Her latest book is One Wish, a return to the world of The Thirteen Treasures.

Emma Carroll is a bestselling author and the 'Queen of Historical Fiction' (BookTrust). She has been nominated for and the winner of numerous national, regional and schools awards - including the Books Are My Bag Readers' Award, Branford Boase, CILIP Carnegie Medal, Young Quills, Teach Primary and the Waterstones Book Prize.

Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, but when the Nazis came to power her family fled to England and she was sent to boarding school. She became a writer while bringing up her four children, and her bestselling novels have been published around the world. Eva died peacefully in October 2010 at the age of eighty-five.

Piers began his career in theatre and then television as a producer and writer. His bestselling first book for children, The Last Wild, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Award and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as numerous other awards.

His second book, The Dark Wild, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. The third book in the trilogy, The Wild Beyond, was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. His next book for children, There May Be A Castle, will be published in October 2016.

The son of the late Paul Torday (author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) Piers recently completed his father's final unfinished novel, The Death of an Owl (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, April 2016).

In regular demand as a speaker at schools and festivals, Piers is also a reading helper with Beanstalk, a former judge on the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a Patron of Reading at Heathmere School and a trustee of the Pleasance Theatre. Born in Northumberland, he now lives in London with his husband and hopefully a cat.

Geraldine McCaughrean is a multi-award-winning author of picture books, fiction and retellings for children. She has won the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award and the Blue Peter Special Book to Keep Forever Award.

She is also a three-time winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award and a four-time winner of the Smarties Bronze Award. Her titles include the bestselling The Orchard Book of Greek Myths and The Orchard Book of Roman Myths. She lives in Berkshire.

Amy Alward is a Canadian author and freelance editor who divides her time between the UK and Canada.

In 2013, she was listed as one of The Bookseller's Rising Stars. Her debut fantasy adventure novel, The Oathbreaker's Shadow, was published in 2013 under the name Amy McCulloch and was longlisted for the 2014 Branford Boase Award for best UK debut children's book.

Her first book written as Amy Alward, The Potion Diaries, was an international success and the second novel in the series, The Potion Diaries: Royal Tour will be published in August 2016.

She is currently travelling the world, researching more extraordinary settings and intriguing potions for the third book in the series. She lives life in a continual search for adventure, coffee, and really great books.

Jamila Gavin was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. With an Indian father and an English mother, she inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout her life, and which always made her feel she belonged to both countries. The family finally settled in England where Jamila completed her schooling, was a music student, worked for the BBC and became a mother of two children. It was then that she began writing children's books, and felt a need to reflect the multi-cultural world in which she and her children now lived.

By the time MICHELLE MAGORIAN was eleven she had decided that the perfect life would be to spend half the year acting and the other half writing. After attending the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and Marcel Marceau's L' cole Internationale de Mime in Paris, she wrote between acting jobs and on Sundays when rehearsing and performing musicals and plays six days and six nights a week (as Mikki Magorian).

In her twenties she became interested in children's books and began writing Goodnight Mister Tom - a winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the International Reading Association Award. The musical version (composer Gary Carpenter) was a winner at the 1992 Quest Fest for New Musicals at Buxton Opera House. It has been adapted for television by Brian Finch and as a play by David Wood, broadcast as a radio series in Sweden and Norway, and been optioned by Gaumont for television. Michelle has written the book and lyrics for three more musicals and eight other novels, including award-winning Back Home and Just Henry, which won the Costa Award. She has recorded Back Home and A Little Love Song on Audible.

Other audiobooks include Just Henry, read by the actor Richard Mitchley; and Goodnight Mister Tom, read by Christopher Saul for the RNIB (full version), and an abridged version read by Patrick Malahide. Michelle has a postgraduate certificate in Film Studies (London University/BFI), was awarded an honorary doctorate by Portsmouth University in 2007 and has been made a fellow by Rose Bruford College.

Lauren St. John grew up surrounded by horses and wild animals on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, the inspiration for her memoir, Rainbow's End.

After studying journalism, she relocated to the UK, where she spent nearly a decade on the European and PGA Tours as golf correspondent to the Sunday Times. She also wrote the acclaimed music biography Hardcore Troubadour: The Life & Near Death of Steve Earle.

She is the author of the multi-award-winning The White Giraffe series for children, as well as the Laura Marlin mysteries, the first of which, Dead Man's Cove, won the 2011 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award. Her bestselling One Dollar Horse series was followed by YA horse romance, The Glory, now optioned for film.