British children’s and young adult author Mary Hooper was born in Barnes, South West London. She left school at fifteen, and went to work as a window dresser, and then as a secretary. She eventually returned to school, as an adult student, earning a degree in English from Reading University. Hooper began her writing career…
John Hegley was born in north London and was educated in Luton, Bristol and Bradford University. His first public performance monies came from busking his songs, initially outside a shoe shop in Hull, in the late Seventies. He performed on the streets of London in the early Eighties, fronting the Popticians, with whom he also…
Sally Grindley began writing in 1984 while she was working for a children’s book club. Since 1995 she has been writing full time and has recently won the Smarties Prize. She now has some fifty titles in print. Shhh won the Children’s Book Award in 1992 and was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize. Wake Up Dad won the 1989 Best…
Julia Green is the author of more than fifteen books for young people. Her novels for younger children (7- 11) include Tilly’s Moonlight Fox, Sylvie and Star and Seal Island (published by Oxford University Press). When you start to write a book, do you know how it will end? I do lots of ‘pre-writing’ notes, and think and doodle before…
Katie M Grant is a children’s writer, based in Scotland, who is perhaps best known for her DeGranville Trilogy, published by Walker Books. She was inspired by her own family history to write How the Hangman Lost His Heart. Her ancestor, Colonel Francis Towneley, or Uncle Frank, was the last man in Britain to be hanged,…
Julia Golding’s first novel, The Diamond of Drury Lane, won the 2006 Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and the Nestle Children’s Book Prize. This was the first in a series of books which tell the story of a feisty orphan girl brought up in a theatre in Georgian London. Her other series include the Companions Quartet and the Darcie Lock books.…
Alan Gibbons has been writing children’s books for seventeen years. He is the winner of the Blue Peter Book Award 2000 ‘The book I couldn’t put down’ for his best-selling book Shadow of the Minotaur. He was a judge of the 2001 Awards. Alan has been a teacher for 16 years, working with KS1, KS2…
Once you have an idea for a book, how do you start? It can be difficult for example, with the new Jamie Johnson book, Skills From Brazil, I knew I wanted to write a story about Brazil (perfect for this summer) but that is actually quite a difficult place to start from a dramatic point…
Pauline Francis was a teacher and librarian before becoming a full-time writer. She writes books for children and young people. What comes first – the fiction side of the book or the historical period? I’m interested in the women who were trapped in dangerous situations and didn’t always have the power to extricate themselves. How…