Former Waterstones bookseller Morgan Owen lives in her own little world, but which world in particular depends on the day. A lifelong fan of escaping reality, she was first published at the age of 12, reviewing the Tom Cruise fan club website (it was okay). She regrettably didn’t graduate from Birmingham University but she’s had lots of different jobs, including as a music journalist and a film PR executive. Morgan is amicably divorced from her American ex-wife and has two black cats called Salem and Binx. Her passions include pop culture, cosy gaming, retrofuturism, space and lucid dreams.
Keris is the bestselling author of fourteen novels (under the name Keris Stainton), including adult and YA romcoms and one Christmas novel for younger readers that is not a romance, but does star a talking pug. She previously worked as a bookseller, a PA in the music industry, and once got a casual job as an arena steward so she could see New Kids on the Block for free.
She was born in Canada, grew up on the Wirral, lived in London for a while and, along with her two teen sons, recently moved back to her home town to live by the sea. She can almost always be found on Twitter or Instagram, avoiding writing her next book (but she’s working on it in her head. Probably).
Keris writes as Olivia Harvey for Hot Key Books.
Julia can’t remember a time when she didn’t think up stories; as a young child, she even made them up about her bedroom wallpaper. And her toes. From the moment she could read, she devoured the stories hidden in the pages of books. Now she gets to write them for both children (MG and early teens) and adults. Some days she can’t quite believe she hasn’t made that up, too.
During her working life, the majority of Julia’s roles were education-related, her favourite being as a Learning Support Assistant in a mainstream secondary school where she worked with students who had a variety of additional needs, mainly ASD. She was heartbroken when, disabled by chronic illness, she had to give this up and with it the life she imagined might be hers in her retirement years. She is now an ambulatory wheelchair user and writes as frequently as her health permits. When she can’t physically write, her imagination still dreams up stories that take her on some extraordinary adventures.
Julia’s heart and home are in Cumbria with her husband. They have two grown-up children and have the privilege of being grandparents, which is a whole other adventure.
Judith began her acting career in the North East, cornering the market in featured servant roles, complete with apron and floppy cap.
She spent several years working in administration for Children and Young Peoples’ Services before finding her current role in the education sector on the backshift where all the night owls go.
Judith has always had stories swimming in her head and when she started writing them down she found that she couldn’t stop.
She lives in County Durham and loves reading aloud to anyone who’ll listen.
Jennifer Kennedy is a gothic horror author from the North West of England. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published in various magazines and anthologies. When she isn’t writing she dreams of living in a haunted castle on the moors. Until then, she is content in her tiny house with her son and their extremely black cat.
As well as writing for middle grade, Gabrielle works as a creative producer for the Terry Pratchett estate which is a dream job for a lifetime fan of the Discworld series. She started out as a videogame artist working on games for PC, Playstation and XBox, before becoming a university lecturer in game design. Her first series for Scholastic was about a boy called Alfie Bloom who inherits a castle and a whole load of magical problems. Her passion for writing and experience of childhood in the eighties came together with her love of videogames when she was asked to write a series of novels based on the characters and world from the game, Knights and Bikes. Her most recent series was written with her husband, Satish Shewhorak. Rani Reports, features a girl who wants to be an investigative journalist and her exciting adventures with her rambunctious Mauritian grandma! She finally got to place one of her own books in her Discworld collection when she wrote Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch with Rhianna Pratchett and their words were brought to life by illustrator Paul Kidby.
One of Gabrielle’s favourite experiences was being recruited by BBC Bitesize as a games expert to help Peter Capaldi’s Doctor Who to save the world from the Daleks using programming.
Chris McGeorge grew up in Norfolk, always wanting to create. He started writing comics about his favourite characters, progressing on to short stories. At school, he focused on English and wrote his first short story collection (mercifully unpublished) at 13.
He is a lover of Golden Age crime, such as Christie and Conan Doyle, leading his stories to be a mix of the old and the contemporary. He likes weird and wonderful plots, with plenty of intrigue and twists.
He studied MA Creative Writing (Crime/Thriller) at City University London where he wrote his first novel as his thesis. His interests are broad – spanning film, books, theatre and video games. He is a member of the Northern Crime Syndicate, a supergroup of writers living in Northern England.
He lives in County Durham with his partner and many, many animals.
From a young age Beth Michon has had a vivid imagination and an appetite to write. She has a degree in English Literature and French which nurtured a curiosity for exploring languages and different cultures. She’s inspired by individual, personal stories, and the variety of voices and perspectives that can be portrayed through fiction, particularly in the context of unusual and challenging circumstances.
When not writing (or with her head in a book), she likes to throw herself into new experiences and adventures, and seeks out the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Jim Beckett is the author of The Caravan at the Edge of Doom, The Caravan at the Edge of Doom: Foul Prophecy and Buzz Sausage Wolf.
A former English teacher and comedian, Jim has also worked as a bookseller, a census collector, and a seasonal elf. He is currently a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Chichester University.
Like most children’s writers, Jim lives with his family in West Sussex.
Jon Lander is an author and illustrator who lives in Hastings, and grew up in Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
His debut picture book, 10 Silly Children, published by Pavilion (now Farshore), was warmly received by the critics, with plaudits from the Guardian, the Bookseller and the Book Trust. It was longlisted for the 2022 Klaus Flugge Prize, and was featured in the Book Trust’s Top 100 Great Books Guide 2022.
Having originally trained as a fine artist at Byam Shaw School of Art in London (graduating in 2011), he realised he was always making artworks that involved drawing, making and writing books, so it was a natural progression to return to his home town and attend the masters in children’s book illustration at Cambridge School of Art (graduating in 2018).
As well as working on his second picture book, Jon is now writing and illustrating books for older children too.
For many years, he worked as a teaching assistant in schools across the country (and even Spain). He lives with his wife, Laura Ribbons, who is an artist.