Kevin Brooks is the ground-breaking author of the gripping, critically acclaimed novels Martyn Pig, Lucas, Kissing the Rain, Candy and The Road of the Dead.

He has won the Branford Boase Award and the North East Book Award, and been shortlisted for many other prizes, including the CILIP Carnegie Medal (for Martyn Pig) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.

Born in Exeter, Devon, he studied in Birmingham and London. He has worked variously as a petrol pump attendant, a crematorium handyman, a civil service officer, a vendor at London Zoo, a post office counter clerk and a railway ticket office salesperson, before leaving the last of these activities to concentrate on his writing.

SIOBHAN DOWD

Siobhan Dowd was born in London to Irish parents. She spent much of her youth in the family home in County Waterford, then Wicklow town.

After attending a catholic school in London, Siobhan gained a degree in Classics at Oxford University. After a short stint in publishing she then joined the writer’s organisation PEN, initially as a researcher and co-ordinator of the Writers in Prison Committee.

Siobhan went on to be Programme Director of the Freedom To Write committee, based in New York, which included founding and leading the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and co-ordinating Salman Rushdie’s visit with President Clinton in 1993. During her seven-year spell in New York, Siobhan was named one of the "top 100 Irish-Americans" by Irish-America Magazine and AerLingus, for her global anti-censorship work.

On her return to the UK, Siobhan co-founded a readers and writers programme which takes authors into schools that are often in more deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender’s institutions and community projects. During 2004, Siobhan was Deputy Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children’s lives conform with UN legislation.

Siobhan was Deputy Editor of PEN International, a twice-yearly global magazine, and a freelance writer. She held an MA with Distinction in Gender and Ethnic Studies at Greenwich University, authored short stories, columns and articles, and edited two anthologies.

ANNE FINE

Anne Fine was sent to school two years early and she cannot, therefore, remember a time when she couldn’t read. She was a frequent visitor her local library (sometimes twice in the same day) and very soon began to be recognised by the children’s librarians.

Her first book, The Summer House Loon was written when her eldest daughter was a baby. They were trapped inside their freezing cold Edinburgh flat in a blizzard, unable to get to the library so Anne wrote it to cheer herself up.

Many of Anne’s titles are comedies as she can remember that this was her favourite genre when she was growing up - books like the Just William stories, and the Jennings books. Frequently she uses the comic device to great effect exploring weighty issues such as divorce, pregnancy and gender stereotyping. However, books like The Tulip Touch are much darker and more complex in tone and demonstrate her undisputed skill in writing spellbinding stories for children.

Anne’s talent as a distinguished writer for children of all ages was recognised in early 2001 when she was awarded the prestigious post of Children’s Laureate. Anne said she was “sincerely delighted” to take up the position and committed her two years in the role to improve access to good literature for children.

She has over forty books to her credit. An adaptation of her novel Goggle-Eyes has been shown by the BBC and Madame Doubtfire was adapted into the hit film Mrs Doubtfire starring Robin Williams. She has won all of the major literary prizes: the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, and the Smarties Prize. She has been twice voted Children’s Author of the Year at the British Book Awards.

ALLY KEENEN

Ally Kennen grew up on an isolated organic farm on Exmoor, with no toilet, dead tadpoles coming out of the taps and annual rat infestations. Her family fostered 'challenging' teenagers throughout her childhood. After a spell of road protesting she became an archaeologist. Ally reached no. 41 in the UK charts in 2001 with a song she wrote and sang and subsequently toured round the world. She lives in Bristol and has a baby daughter Maeve.

MEG ROSOFF

Meg Rosoff wrote her debut novel How I Live Now soon after her sister Debby died of breast cancer at a young age and Meg realised that life was too short to put off writing the novel she'd always been meaning to write. So she asked for a few months leave from her advertising job at J Walter Thompson and set about writing How I Live Now. She sent it to her agent and a few months later Meg found herself at the heart of a furious bidding war between several of the UK's leading publishers. How I Live Now is dedicated to her late sister Debby.

On the verge of publishing glory in August 2004, Meg was also diagnosed with breast cancer. As wonderful reviews and prizes flooded in, she had to turn to the business of survival. She is currently in remission.

Up until securing her much publicised publishing deal, Meg worked most of her life in advertising. She has also worked on People Magazine and The New York Times and did a stint as New York State deputy press secretary for the democrats in the 1988 presidential election. She also had a job writing movie titles and movie posters for Tristar pictures which she says was her best job ever.

Meg is 49 years old. She lives in Highbury, London with her husband, the painter Paul Hamlyn, and their daughter Gloria. She was born in Boston, America but has been living in the UK since 1989 and is a British citizen.

MARCUS SEDGWICK

Marcus Sedgwick was born in Preston, Kent in 1968. His father was the principal of an adult education college in Thanet and his mother a children's nurse. He has an elder brother, Julian, and a half-sister, Ellie. He was educated in Sandwich, Kent, and went on to Bath University to read Mathematics, changing to Economics and Politics after the first year. He graduated in 1990, took some time out, and then trained as a teacher of English as a foreign language and taught for a few months.

In 1991 he became a bookseller for a large children's bookshop in Cambridge, and then moved into publishing, he now works as a sales manager for a children’s publishing company.

Marcus Sedgwick has been writing since 1994, winning The Brandfoard Boase award for his first title Floodland. He was also shortlisted for The Guardian Children’s Book Award 2002 and for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2003 for The Dark Horse. His recent novels, The Book Of Dead Days, The Dark Flight Down, The Foreshadowing, and My Swordhand Is Singing have all been published to huge critical acclaim.

Marcus lives in Sussex with his wife, Pippa and has a daughter, Alice.