KEVIN CROSSLEY-HOLLAND

Kevin Crossley-Holland was born in 1941. A very well-known poet and librettist, and translator of Beowolf, he studied English literature at Oxford where he discovered a lifelong passion for myth and legend and for Anglo-Saxon and Medieval England. He is a patron for the Society of Storytelling and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kevin regularly lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council, visits schools, leads session for teachers and librarians, and broadcasts on the BBC. He now lives on the north Norfolk coast. He has a Minnesotan wife, Linda, and two sons, Kieran and Dominic, and two daughters, Oenone and Eleanor.

Kevin has won many awards and much critical acclaim for his work. In the world of children’s books he is well known for his retellings of myth, legend and folk-tale, while his novella Storm, which won the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 1985, was recently shortlisted among the ‘Top Ten Carnegie of Carnegies’ from the last 70 years. Equally acclaimed is his Arthur trilogy, which is translated into 23 languages, and has sold over one million copies. The Seeing Stone, the first in the Arthur trilogy, merging medieval life with Arthurian legend, was published to universal praise in 2000, and won the 2001 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Welsh Books Council Tir Na n-Og Award as well as the Smarties Prize Bronze Award. Kevin is currently working on his new novel Waterslain Angels.

LINZI GLASS

Linzi Glass was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to the United States as a young adult. She has published articles, and has written plays, screenplays, short stories and two novels – the critically acclaimed The Year the Gypsies Came, and Ruby Red. She lives in Los Angeles with her many rescue animals and has a nineteen year old daughter, Jordan.

ELIZABETH LAIRD

Elizabeth Laird has been nominated five times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, and has won both the Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award. Her novels include The Garbage King, Oranges in No Mans Land, Secrets of the Fearless and Jake's Tower. Having travelled extensively throughout her life, Elizabeth and her husband now divide their time between Surrey and Edinburgh.

TANYA LANDMAN

As a child Tanya Landman used to spend a lot of time up trees (with a skipping rope tied around her waist), hoping to turn into a monkey. She spent the rest of the time rescuing snails, righting beetles and burying the birds that the cat brought home.

Tanya studied for a degree in English Literature at Liverpool University before working in a bookshop, an arts centre and a zoo. Since 1992 Tanya has been part of Storybox Theatre working as a writer, administrator and performer - a job which has taken her to festivals all over the world. She lives with her husband, Rod Burnett, and two sons, Isaac and Jack, in Devon.

Tanya had no ambition to write until Waking Merlin popped into her head a few years ago; but now she can't seem to stop writing! She says it's the best job ever - being allowed to spend hours staring into space, daydreaming...

MEG ROSOFF

Meg Rosoff is sure she should always have been a writer! It took many years in advertising and journalism and a fortieth birthday to make her finally decide to write a novel. She started off with a picture book text featuring four wild boars – the result was a book taken to auction in New York. Meg’s agent then encouraged the novel – the quite brilliant How I Live Now – published in 2004 to great acclaim. The book has been translated into 12 languages, a film deal has been signed and the awards are coming.

What she says…

“I’ve worked in other jobs for 25 years, so what I really wanted to be was a writer. At other times in my life I’ve wanted to be a spy, a show-jumper, a man. I think the best job in the world must be head gardener for Regents Park.”

“If I’d written my first novel 20 years ago, I’d still be trying to get published today. It would have emerged tortured, humourless, and overlong: a thinly disguised autobiography attracting enough rejection to cause permanent psychological damage. I wouldn’t have learned brevity, lateral thinking, or the many practical applications of a distinctly flawed personality. I might never have learned that there are a million ways to skin a cat, or write a sex scene.”

Meg’s tips to becoming a successful writer:

1. Be very lucky
2. Edit ruthlessly
3. Be very lucky

PHILIP REEVE

Philip Reeve was born and raised in Brighton, where he worked in a bookshop for a number of years while also co-writing, producing and directing a number of no-budget theatre projects.

Philip then began illustrating and has since provided cartoons for around forty children’s books, including the best-selling Horrible Histories, Murderous Maths and Dead Famous series.

Philip has been writing stories since he was five, but Mortal Engines was the first to be published. Mortal Engines defies easy categorisation. It is a gripping adventure story set in an inspired fantasy world, where moving cities trawl the globe. A magical and unique read, it immediately caught the attention of reviewers and book buyers. It was shortlisted for several awards and was the Gold Award winner at the Nestle Smarties Book Prize 2002 and the winner of the Blue Peter Book of the Year at the 2003 Awards.

Since Mortal Engines's release in 2001, followers and fans of the series have been growing exponentially. Philip Reeve is now known as one of the leading writers for young adults, with his every book achieving huge sales, glowing review coverage and award nominations.

Predator's Gold is the second book in the Mortal Engines series, Infernal Devices the third and A Darkling Plain concludes the series to date. A Darkling Plain was published in 2006 and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

In 2007, Philip took a new direction with publication of Here Lies Arthur, a story which this time looks back into history. Set in the times of King Arthur, the book is a gripping adventure story and at the same time explores how a myth can be created simply through spin-doctoring and story-telling - a very relevant subject in today's political environment. Here Lies Arthur has received a fantastic reaction from the media and his reader fans.

Other projects in Philip's portfolio include writing a series for younger readers called Buster Baylis, and illustrating the brilliant Urgum the Axeman and Urgum and the Seat of Flames all for Scholastic Children's Books. He is also published by Bloomsbury, his first book for them is Larklight and published in 2006 and the second, Starcross, came out in 2007.

Philip lives on Dartmoor with his wife and son, and his interests are walking, drawing, writing and reading.

JENNY VALENTINE

Jenny moved house every two years when she was growing up. She worked in a wholefood shop in Primrose Hill, London, for fifteen years where she met many extraordinary people – including the inspiration for character Violet Park – and sold more organic loaves than there are words in her first novel. She has also worked as a teaching assistant and a jewellery maker. She studied English Literature at Goldsmith’s College, which almost put her off reading but not quite.

Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children. She lives in Hay on Wye, where she runs the local wholefood store, hoping to find the inspiration for many more novels. Finding Violet Park won the Guardian Fiction Prize 2007. Broken Soup is Jenny’s second novel, and is currently shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Prize.