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Authors beginning with: D

Alan Durant

Alan Durant is the author of books for a wide age-range, from picture books such as Burger Boy to top-end teenage thrillers. He also writes prize-winning poetry.

Alesha Dixon

Alesha Dixon is a much loved TV star, who first found fame as part of MOBO Award-winning group Mis-Teeq. Her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2007 led to her winning the series and becoming a judge for three seasons.  Since then she has presented and hosted many TV shows including: Alesha’s Street Dance Stars, Children in Need, Sport Relief, Your Face Sounds Familiar and ITV’s Dance, Dance, Dance. She is currently a hugely popular judge on the UK's number one TV show, Britain's Got Talent. Her LIGHTNING GIRL series was hugely successful and the first book was the biggest-selling middle grade debut of 2018. Her book, GIRLS RULE, an inspiring, empowering and funny new title, is out in August 2021.

Alexis Deacon

Alexis Deacon graduated from the University of Brighton, where he studied Illustration, gaining a first class honours degree. Alexis Deacon is one of Book Trust's ten Best New Illustrators, and Beegu was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Alexis lives in London.

Benjamin Dean

Benjamin Dean is an author and former celebrity reporter based in London. Although publishing books is high on the list, his biggest achievement to date is breaking the news that Rihanna can't wink – she blinks, in case you were wondering. Benjamin can probably be found tweeting instead of finishing a first draft, and also telling people to call him Ben, because Benjamin is what his mother calls him when he's in trouble.

Benji Davies

Benji Davies is an illustrator and animation director. From a young age he was often to be found painting at the kitchen table, a scene which can still be seen to this day. Benji studied animation at university and has since worked on a diverse array of projects, from picture books and animated short films to music videos, commercials and title sequences. His books have been co-editioned in many languages and countries around the world. The Storm Whale is his first self-penned picture book. He lives in London with his wife Nina.

Berlie Doherty

Berlie Doherty is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal. She has also written novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera.

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread Award, the Forward Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. In 2005, she won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Rapture. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009.

Damian Dibben

Damian Dibben has been described as 'one of the hottest properties in children's fiction today' (The Observer). Damian's time-travel book sequence The History Keepers is published in 40 countries and translated into 26 languages. Working Title has acquired movie rights - the first time they have ever bought a children's book sequence.

Damian initially trained as an actor, then branched out into writing screenplays before embarking on The History Keepers. He is based in London but travels extensively to research his books, often taking his Jack Russell Dudley along on the trips

David Dean

David Dean is a full-time illustrator who enjoys travelling the world from the comfort of his own studio. Known for his exotic and colourful painting, David works in a room surrounded by books from many different cultures, from which he finds inspiration. In his spare time, David enjoys walking the countryside near his house in Cheshire, taking photographs of the things he sees.

Ellie Daines

Ellie grew up in London and is of African Caribbean descent. Ellie studied Journalism at university and then spent several years working in online marketing, mainly within the not-for-profit sector. Lolly Luck is her first book. Ellie professes to watch too much TV and enjoying fashion, films and choc cornflakes.

Elys Dolan

Elys Dolan is the author and illustrator of Weasels. Elys grew up in a part of Sussex, England that consists almost entirely of trees and cows and she was named after a department store in Wimbledon, London. She’s never let either of these things hold her back and Elys recently graduated with distinction from the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. In recent time, Elys has been awarded second place in the Macmillan Prize and was also shortlisted for the Waterstone’s ‘Picture This’ prize. Elys works predominately with ink, newfangled digital witchcraft and coloured pencils of which she is the proud owner of 178 but can never seem to find a sharpener.  Based in Cambridge, when Elys is not drawing she grows cacti, collects pocket watches and spends altogether too much time in the company of other illustrators.

Emily Diamand

Background is key to Emily Diamand. And yes, that is her real name! Working as a campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Emily’s insight into the issues around climate change informs the all-action adventure behind Reavers’ Ransom. This, her debut novel, won The Times / Chicken House children’s fiction competition in 2008. Emily lives in Harrogate with her partner and son and has written a sequel for Reavers Ransom.

Emma Dodd

Emma Dodd was brought up in Guildford, Surrey, in a family of artists. As a child she loved the work of Peter Firmin, John Burningham and Gerald Rose and from as far back as she can remember she wanted to be an illustrator.

Emma studied graphic design and Illustration at Central Saint Martin's School of Art and has worked in advertising, editorial and book illustration. She has illustrated bestselling Noisy Noisy series for Ladybird Books and, with author Giles Andreae, won a Book Trust Early Years Award in 2010 for I Love My Mummy.

Emma Donoghue

Born in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish writer who lives in Canada. Her fiction includes the bestselling novel Slammerkin and her novels have been translated into thirty-nine languages. Room, her seventh novel, was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, won the Irish Novel of the Year and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and most won in the Caribbean and Canada Best Book category of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Donoghue has also been shortlisted for the Galaxy International Author of the Year and is winner of the TV Book Club. She lives in London, Ontario with Chris Roulston and their two children.

Helen Dennis

Helen Dennis was born in Brighton and loves living near the sea. Her mum gave her a library card when she was six weeks old, which made her, at the time, Brighton Library's youngest member! By the age of seven, she was sure she wanted to be a writer. Helen wrote her first (unpublished) book at the age of eleven. It was inspired by The Hobbit and set in outer space. After university, Helen taught at the largest junior school in Europe as head of English and, later, assistant headteacher. Many of the characters in her stories are inspired by children she has taught, but her biggest inspiration comes from her daughter, Meggie, who patiently listens to all her story ideas and also corrects her spellings.

Helen Docherty

Helen is a children’s author based in Swansea. Her picture books have been translated into 27 languages and shortlisted for various national awards. The Snatchabook won the Oldham Brilliant Book Award 2014 and The Knight Who Wouldn’t Fight won the Bae Baglan Award 2017, both voted for by school children. Helen often collaborates with her husband, the illustrator and author Thomas Docherty. The Screen Thief is also one of their books together.

Helen worked for many years as a language teacher before turning her gift with words to writing for children. She lives in Wales with Thomas, their two daughters and a puppy.

Jean De Brunhoff

Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937) is considered to be one of the greatest picture book authors in history.

Babar began as a story told by his wife, Cécile de Brunhoff, to their two young sons, Laurent and Mathieu, of a little elephant whose mother is shot by hunters and then moves to Paris in search of a new home. The boys so loved the story they asked their father Jean, an artist, to create some drawings of the elephant he named Babar. The first Babar book, The Story of Babar was published in France in 1931 and was an instant success and Jean de Brunhoff went on to write 6 more Babar books.

After his untimely death in at the early age of 37 his son Laurent continued writing and illustrating the tales of Babar which now includes numerous books, films and an animated television series.

Jennifer Donnelly

Jennifer Donnelly lives near New York. Revolution, published by Bloomsbury this month, is her second book for young adults. Her first book, A Gathering Light, won the Carnegie Medal in 2003 and was one of the first Richard and Judy books. She has also written the Tea Rose series for adults.

John Dougherty

John Dougherty was the sort of boy who always had his nose in a book, and he grew into the sort of adult who always has his nose in a book, which is probably why he decided to become a writer. Born and raised in Larne, Northern Ireland, John now lives in Stroud in Gloucestershire with his wife, two children, a few chickens and several bees. He’s a keen singer who has performed solo, with a band, and as a member of three award-winning a cappella groups. He also enjoys running, and has completed the London Marathon three times. A former teacher, John now loves to visit schools to talk about his work. His books have been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards but, more importantly, they make children giggle.

Jonny Duddle

Jonny Duddle is a bestselling author who has written and illustrated multiple picture books and chapter books for Templar Publishing - including the Waterstones Award-winning bestseller The Pirates Next Door. In fact, it was a year spent working on a square-rigger vessel, combined with his work as a concept artist on the Pirates of the Carribbean computer game, that inspired Jonny to create his highly successful debut picture book, The Pirate Cruncher.

Joyce Dunbar

Joyce has written over eighty books for children, many of them picture books - including the best selling Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep and the much performed Shoe Baby and This is the Star. She also wrote a series of short funny novels called Software Superslug and the Mouse and Mole 26 which have been animated for television. She lives and works in Norwich.

Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson is one of today's most popular writers. Her bestselling titles include The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child and Room on the Broom. Although she is best-known for her picture books, Julia also writes longer novels, plays and songs. She lives in Glasgow and spends a lot of time on stage performing her brilliant sell-out singalong shows!

Julia Donaldson was the Children's Laureate 2011-13.

Juno Dawson

Juno Dawson grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. She later turned her talent to journalism, interviewing bands before writing for a Brighton newspaper. Until recently, Juno worked as a teacher, specialising in PSHE. She is most proud of her work surrounding anti-bullying and family diversity. In 2014 she became a School Role Model for the charity Stonewall. In 2015, Juno announced her intention to undergo gender transition and live as a woman.

Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo is one of America’s most beloved storytellers, author of The Tale of Despereaux and Flora and Ulysses, both of which have been awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal; Because of Winn-Dixie, which received a Newbery Honor; The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; and the bestselling Mercy Watson series. Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Florida and now lives in Minneapolis, USA, where she faithfully writes two pages a day, five days a week.

Katie Davies

Katie Davies knows a thing or two about animal disasters. She is the author of The Great Dog Disaster, The Great Cat Conspiracy, The Great Rabbit Rescue, and her first book, The Great Hamster Massacre, which was inspired by true events - when she was twelve years old, after a relentless begging campaign, she was given two Russian Dwarf hamsters for Christmas.

She has yet to recover from what happened to those hamsters. Katie lives with her family in North London.

Keren David

Growing up in a small town in Hertfordshire, Keren David had two ambitions: to write a book and to live in London. Several decades on, she has finally achieved both. She was distracted by journalism, starting out at 18 as a messenger girl, then working as a reporter, news editor, features editor and feature writer for national newspapers and magazines. She has lived in Glasgow and Amsterdam, where in eight years she learned enough Dutch to order coffee and buy fruit and vegetables. She is now back in London and lives with her husband, two children and their insatiably hungry guinea pigs.

Keren wrote her first novel When I Was Joe as a project for a course in writing for Children at City University. Starting the course to publishing the novel took exactly two years.

Lari Don

Lari Don was born in Chile, brought up in Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh with her family. Lari is a storyteller and award-winning children's author. Her fiction is inspired by her love of myths, legends and fables.

Laura Dockrill

One of the hardest-working and most talented authors and poets in the country today. Laura is indefatigable. Not content with being a poet, she has her own poetry choir. Not content with releasing books of poetry and illustrated novellas, she has just put out a collection of twisted fairytales, inspired by Grimm, Dahl, fantasy, Skins, Shameless, Greek mythology and ghosts, called Echoes. She has been tearing up stages across the country for years now, she's been on ones-to-watch list for a good few too. Laura Dockrill hasn't just arrived, she's taking over.

Lynley Dodd

Lynley Dodd is New Zealand's bestselling children's author/illustrator and has an international following. She worked as a teacher before beginning to write her own books in 1974 and has published over twenty brilliant stories about Hairy Maclary, Slinky Malinki, Scarface Claw and lots of other memorable characters. Lynley lives with her husband and cat in New Zealand.

Narinder Dhami

Narinder Dhami was born and brought up in Wolverhampton, with two younger sisters. She went to Birmingham University and worked for about ten years as a primary school teacher. Always nurturing a talent for writing, she finally turned her attention to it full-time after winning several short story prizes. Her very first book was accepted by a publisher and she hasn't looked back since. She lives with her husband and their five cats in Shropshire.

Nicola Davies

Nicola Davies is the author of more than 50 books for children: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in more than 10 different languages and has won major awards in the UK, US, France, Italy and Germany.

Nicola trained as a zoologist, taking a degree in Natural Sciences from King's College, Cambridge. She spent some years as a field biologist and studied humpback and sperm whales, and bats, before joining the BBC Natural History Unit as a researcher and then presenter.

Following the start of her writing career, Nicola became a senior lecturer in creative writing, at Bath Spa University but has been writing full time for over a decade. She now regularly runs workshops for children and adults to help them find their voices as writers and advocates for nature. In 2017, she was the first recipient of the SLA’s award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Non-fiction and in 2018 had four picture books longlisted for the Greenaway Award.

Find out what Nicola Davies is up to as our Writer in Residence

Niki Daly

Niki Daly was born in Cape Town in 1946. Always a keen musician, in 1970 he went to England to fulfil a recording and songwriting contract and work as a graphic designer/illustrator. He won a British Arts Council Illustration Award for The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Road (his first published work) in 1978. Since then, he has illustrated many stories of his own as well as those of other writers.

In 1980 he returned to South Africa where he worked as a teacher and freelance illustrator, and led the Graphic Design Department of Stellenbosch University until 1989. In 1988 he won a Parents Choice Award for his book, Not so Fast, Songololo. From 1989 to1992 he developed Songololo Books, a children’s book division of David Philip Publishers. During 1989-1990 Daly ran writing and illustration workshops which facilitated the work of other writer and illustrator teams. Many of these workshop projects, such as Charlie’s House, Somewhere in Africa and All the Magic in the World have been published internationally as picture books.

Owen Davey

Owen Davey is an award-winning illustrator from the UK. He has worked with clients including Google, Facebook, Sony, Lego and National Geographic. He is also the lead illustrator on the multi-award winning app Two Dots and has produced many picture books over the years, most notably the non-fiction ‘About’ series with Flying Eye Books, which began with Mad About Monkeys in 2015. His numerous books have been published in every continent except Antartica. He won Best of Show and two Silver Awards in the 3x3 Professional Show 2019.

Paul Dowswell

After doing a History degree at Goldsmith’s College in London, Paul began working as a researcher for museums and publishers. Paul started writing at Time-Life in London then moved to Usborne to work as an editor and writer of children’s non-fiction. After eight years he went freelance, writing information books for everyone from the National Trust and Hodder & Stoughton, to Scholastic’s Literacy Time classroom material and Microsoft’s DVD Encarta encyclopedia. Paul started to write more narrative non-fiction with Usborne’s True Stories series which gave him the confidence to try his hand at fiction. This led directly to the Powder Monkey series with Bloomsbury.

Paul divides his life between Wolverhampton, Chester and London. He lives in Wolverhampton with his wife and daughter. Outside of work Paul teaches a course in writing children’s books at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham.

Polly Dunbar

Polly Dunbar studied illustration at Brighton Art School and now lives and works in London. Author and illustrator of Penguin, Dog Blue and Flyaway Katie, she thinks that colour is a brilliant way to cheer yourself up and whenever she's feeling grey, she puts on her best pink frock and paints! Polly is the daughter of the distinguished author Joyce Dunbar who she collaborated with on the picture book Shoe Baby. She is also the illustrator of My Dad's a Birdman, written by David Almond, and Here's a Little Poem, an anthology of poems for very young children. Polly was one of the Best New Illustrators 2008 and BookTrust's fourth writer in residence. Polly lives and works in Brighton.

Roald Dahl

Sitting in a hut at the bottom of his garden, surrounded by odd bits and pieces such as a suitcase (used as a footrest), his own hipbone (which he'd had replaced) and a heavy ball of metal foil (made from years' worth of chocolate wrappers), Roald Dahl wrote some of the world's best-loved stories including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, The Witches, The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach and lots more.

Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eleven acclaimed novels including The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, two collections of short stories, Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents, and The Guts. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Sarah Dyer

Sarah Dyer graduated from Kingston University in 2001. Her first book, Five Little Fiends went on to win the Bronze Smarties Prize and the UKRA (United Kingdom Reading Award) award. It has been an international success, translated into nine different languages.

Since then she has written and illustrated many books including Clementine and Mungo, Princess For A Day, The Girl with the Bird's-Nest Hair, Batty, Monster Day at Work and Mrs Muffly's Monster.

Sarah lives in Dalston, East London and teaches part-time on the Foundation Course and the Illustration BA Course at Kingston University.

Siobhan Dowd

Siobhan Dowd passed away in August 2007 after a long fight with breast cancer. In her short career, she was nominated for a number of awards, including the 2007 Carnegie Medal and the BookTrust Teenage Prize, and went on to win the 2007 Branford Boase Award and the 2007 Bisto Eilis Dilon Award, both awards that recognise an outstanding debut, for A Swift Pure Cry. In early 2007, Siobhan was nominated one of the top 25 Authors of the future as Waterstone's celebrated their 25th Anniversary.

Stephen Davies

Stephen Davies (born 28 July 1976) is a British children's author. He lived in Burkina Faso in Africa from 2001 to 2014 and since then has lived in Battersea, London.

Susie Day

Susie Day is the author of the Pea's Book and Secrets series from Puffin. Her novel for children, Max Kowalski Didn't Mean It, is about dragons and toxic masculinity. Between books, she works as a copywriter in Birmingham. Susie currently lives in Coventry with her partner and two silly cats.

Ted Dewan

When he moved to London from the USA in 1988, he illustrated for newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, and The Sunday Times.

Since winning the 1992 Mother Goose Award for Inside the Whale and Other Animals, he has created both fiction and non-fiction picture books including Top Secret (1995), The Weatherbirds (1999), and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1997) was shortlisted for the Kurt Maschler Award. He is the creator of Crispin the Pig trilogy; the first book, Crispin,The Pig Who Had It All, won the 2002 Blue Peter Award and a Kate Greenaway Award Honorable Mention that same year.

He lives in Oxford with his wife, author/illustrator Helen Cooper and their daughter, Pandora.

Terry Deary

Terry Deary began his writing career with fiction for A&C Black. He is now author of over 200 fiction and non-fiction books, which have been published in 40 languages. His historical fiction for older children 'Tudor Terror' has been praised as 'a marvellous blend of fact and fiction' (School Librarian). His non-fiction has been consistently in the bestseller lists since 1994. His 'Horrible Histories' celebrated their 15th anniversary in 2008, having sold over 25 million copies worldwide and been adapted as television series, theatre tours and museum exhibitions. Terry Deary was voted 'Outstanding children's non-fiction author of the 20th Century' by Books for Keeps magazine.

He was born in Sunderland in 1946 and now lives in Derwentside, County Durham. Terry is a former actor, theatre-director and museum manager.

Thomas Docherty

Thomas Docherty has received widespread acclaim for his illustration. Originally from New Zealand, Thomas lives in Wales with Helen and their young daughters.

Tony De Saulles

Tony De Saulles is the illustrator of the Horrible Science series. Tony trained as a graphic designer and worked in advertising and book designing before becoming an illustrator. Tony lives in Cheltenham and runs drawing workshops at schools, libraries and book festivals around the country.