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Authors beginning with: M

A A Milne

Alan Alexander Milne was born in Hampstead in 1882 and attended an independent school run by his father before studying mathematics at Cambridge. After university he worked as an Assistant Editor at the magazine Punch and established himself as a successful author of both plays and novels, including The Red House Mystery until, with the publication of When We Were Very Young in 1924 and Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926 his career took a very different turn. Milne continued to produce works for adults but occasionally resented the success of his children's stories, which overshadowed much of his other work.

In 1952 A. A. Milne suffered a stroke after brain surgery and retired to his country home in Sussex as an invalid. He died there four years later.

Adam Murphy

Adam has been writing and drawing comics for The Phoenix Comic since it started in 2012. He is the creator of Corpse Talk, in which he digs up famous people from history and interviews their reanimated zombie corpses. He also writes and draws Lost Tales, in which he re-interprets unusual folktales from around the world. His first book Corpse Talk: Season 1 was published by David Fickling Books in 2014.

Alice Melvin

Alice Melvin is an illustrator and designer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her work is inspired by her love of paper, print and decorative arts. Animals, birds, pattern and text occur frequently in her work along with the odd teapot as well. Integral to a lot of her work is the making process and she loves working on products with an interactive element such as the ‘cut out and make’ cards and kits she has designed.

Alice's first book An A to Z Treasure Hunt was published by Tate Publishing in 2007 and was followed in 2009 by Counting Birds. Counting Birds was a Scottish Book Trust Book of the Month and was recognised in the critics' choice in the Association of Illustrators Images 34 exhibition. In 2011 Alice was awarded a BookTrust Best New Illustrator Award designed to celebrate the rising talent in the field of illustration.

Andy Mulligan

Andy Mulligan is an English writer best known for young adult fiction. His work is strongly influenced by his experiences working as a volunteer in Calcutta, India, and as an English and drama teacher in Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines, and the UK.

Anna McQuinn

Anna McQuinn has worked in children's books for more than thirty years as an editor, publisher, and a writer. She has a deep and abiding interest in child development in the early years, and her writing is informed by her many years working as a Sure Start community librarian.
Anna has written over 50 books for young children, most well known for her Lulu and Zeki series.
She lives in the wilds of the Kerry coast in Ireland with her partner and a small black cat.

Anthony McGowan

Anthony McGowan was born in Manchester in 1965. He went to school in Leeds. He has an M.Phil in philosophy and a PhD on the history of the concept of beauty. He has worked as a nightclub bouncer, civil servant, and Open University tutor in philosophy. He now lives in London. He is married to the fashion designer and novelist Rebecca Campbell. They have two children.

His debut thriller, Stag Hunt, was published in 2005 and a sequel, Mortal Coil, came out in 2005. In the same year, Random House published Hellbent, his first novel for teenagers, and a second young-adult book, Henry Tumour, was published in 2006. Henry Tumour won the Book Trust Teenage prize, the 2007 Catalyst Award, and has been shortlisted for several major awards.

Barbara Mitchelhill

Barbara Mitchelhill was born in Rochdale and trained as a teacher. While she was teaching, she began writing for BBC children's TV and went on to write for educational publishers, before writing novels for children. She makes school visits all over the country, and enjoys appearing at literary festivals and talking to teachers and librarians, some as far away as the Caribbean.

Her hobbies include reading, theatre, music, gardening and walking her border terrier, Ella. She lives in Staffordshire and has two grown-up daughters and four grandchildren.

Ben Mantle

Ben Mantle graduated from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Since then he has worked in film, as Head of Animation in a Brighton-based studio as well as being an illustrator, and has exhibited his digital work in Brighton and London. He has published books with Usborne, Scholastic, and HarperCollins amongst others. He has also recently animated the Big and Small characters on a CBeebies interactive website. He lives in Brighton.

Bren MacDibble

Bren MacDibble won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award, as well as the New Zealand Book Award for Junior Fiction in 2018 with her novel How to Bee - and simultaneously claimed the top award in the YA category in New Zealand for her debut novel, written under the penname Cally Black. She is undoubtedly one of the most important new names to emerge from the Australian children's fiction world in recent years.

The Dog Runner is a meticulously researched, yet empathetic and gripping adventure story which will inspire young readers to think about the implications of climate change and how they will help to mitigate them. It has been shortlisted for the Red Magazine Big Book Award 2019 in the UK, as well as for the New Zealand Book Award for Junior Fiction.

After rebuilding her home, destroyed in a wildfire, Bren sold it and most of the contents and now lives in a camper van and travels around Australia, writing and teaching.

Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran published her first novel, for children, aged 15, became a columnist for The Times at eighteen, and is the author of the international best-seller How To Be A Woman. She also has very big hair. Her latest book Moranthology is out now.

China Miéville

China Tom Miéville is an English fantasy fiction author, comic writer, political activist and academic. He often describes his work as weird fiction and allied to the loosely associated movement of writers sometimes called New Weird.

Miéville has won numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award (three times), the British Fantasy Award (twice), the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (four times) and Best Science Fiction Novel, Locus Awards for Best Novelette and Best Young Adult Books, as well as the Hugo, Kitschies and World Fantasy Awards.

Chris Mould

Chris is an award-winning illustrator who went to art school at 16. A sublime draftsman with a penchant for the gothic, he has illustrated the gamut from picture books and young fiction, to theatre posters and satirical cartoons for national newspapers. His stunning reimagining of Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal, was a Waterstones’ selection of best books of 2019 and shortlisted by Foyles’ for Book of the Year 2019.
 
He lives in Yorkshire with his wife, has two grown-up daughters, and when he’s not drawing and writing, you’ll find him… actually, he’s never not drawing or writing.



Dave McKean

Dave McKean is a long-time artistic collaborator of award-winning author Neil Gaiman. He has illustrated and designed several children's books, including eight with Neil: Coraline, The Wolves in the Walls, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, Varjak Paw with SF Said (winner of the Smarties Gold award in 2004), Mirrormask, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch, Signal to Noise and Crazy Hair. He is also a film-maker. Dave lives in Kent.

David McKee

David McKee was born and brought up in South Devon, where he went from grammar school to Plymouth Art College. Whilst still at college he started selling one-off cartoons to newspapers and on graduation, he began to contribute to such publications as Punch, the Times Education Supplement and Reader's Digest. His first book, Two Can Toucan, was published in 1964 and since then he has written and illustrated numerous children's books. Of his many beloved quirky characters, Elmer the Elephant and Mr Benn are possibly the most well-known. He died in April 2022, aged 87.

David Melling

David Melling was born in Oxford and still lives near the city. His father was a sculptor and Melling inherited his artistic leanings. He previously worked as a photographer and as an animation artist for films including the much-loved Father Christmas, based on the book by Raymond Briggs.

One of Melling's most popular picture books, The Tale of Jack Frost, was animated and shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day with a voiceover by Hugh Laurie. It was shortlisted for the Pulcinella Award 2005 for the Best TV Movie category.

David is married and lives with his wife and two children.

David Mackintosh

David Mackintosh is a graphic designer and illustrator based in London, UK. He has designed and illustrated many books and worked with photographers and illustrators on numerous projects in a variety of fields including advertising, publishing and television.

Davide Morosinotto

Davide was born in a small town in the hills of Northern Italy. He always wanted to be a writer, and spent his school days thinking up incredible adventures and imaginary worlds. His debut La Corsa Della Bilancia won the Mondadori Junior Award, and since then he's written 27 books for children and young adults both in his own name and as a ghost writer. His books have been translated into 16 languages. He also works as a translator and screenwriter for TV productions and video games. His book Il Rinomato Catalogo Walker & Dawn has been a bestseller in Italy and Germany, and won the Andersen Prize for best children's literature.

Deirdre Madden

Deirdre Madden is from Toomebridge, Co. Antrim. Her novels include The Birds of the Innocent Wood, Nothing is Black, One by One in the Darkness, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and Authenticity. She teaches at Trinity College Dublin and is a member of the Irish arts academy Aosdána.

Emma Moss

Emma Moss has always loved reading and, following a degree in English Literature, moved into children's publishing, where she worked for eight happy years. Now a freelance editor and writer, she's worked with a range of celebrity authors including YouTuber Tanya Burr on Love, Tanya. Her hobbies include charity work for South London Cares and, of course, watching her favourite YouTubers online! She lives in South London.

Erika McGann

Erika McGann grew up in Drogheda and now lives in Dublin. She has a respectable job, very normal friends and rarely dabbles in witchcraft. She loves writing stories that are autobiographical. Sort of. The Demon Notebook was her first book, the sequel to it The Broken Spell is also published by The O'Brien Press.

Gaby Morgan

Gaby Morgan is an Editorial Director at Macmillan Children's Books. She has compiled many bestselling anthologies including Read Me and Laugh: A Funny Poem for Every Day of the Year, Poems from the First World War, Fairy Poems – which was short-listed for the CLPE Award – and the Macmillan Collector's Library poetry series featuring anthologies on Happiness, Nature, Childhood, Travelling and Christmas.

Gemma Merino

Gemma Merino won the prestigious Macmillan Prize for Children's Illustration in 2011, whilst studying for her MA in Children's Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. Born in Catalonia, Gemma originally studied architecture in Barcelona and has worked in practices in Spain, Dublin, Tel Aviv and now London, where she lives. This is her debut picture book.

Geraldine McCaughrean

Geradline McCaugrean worked as a secretary, teacher, journalist and sub-editor before becoming a full time author. She has written about 160 books, mostly for children but also books for adults and short plays.

Giles and Alexandra Milton

Giles Milton is the best-selling author of seven history books and two novels. His books have been translated into 17 languages worldwide. He is the author of Call Me Gorgeous and Good Luck Baby Owls and - both illustrated by his wife, Alexandra and published by Boxer Books. Call Me Gorgeous! is their first book for Children.

Alexandra Milton was born in Paris where she studied art and English. She draws inspiration from her father and grandfather, both distinguished artists from Germany. She was brought up on a diet of beautifully-illustrated children’s books. Alexandra worked as a primary school teacher before becoming a full time artist and illustrator. She lives in London with her husband, Giles and their three daughters.

Glenn Murphy

Glenn Murphy is the author of around 20 popular science books. He received his masters in Science Communication from London's Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He wrote his first book, Why Is Snot Green?, while managing the Explainer team at the Science Museum, London.

In 2007 he moved to the United States. He now lives and works in sunny, leafy North Carolina, with his wife Heather, his son Sean and two unfeasibly large cats.

Graham Marks

Graham has spent his whole career in children's publishing, firstly as a designer and Creative Director and latterly as a journalist and author. His first published work was a book of poetry, Seeing is Touching (Taurus Press), which came out while he was studying Information Graphics at Harrow School of Art. For some reason, he didn't see this as a sign of things to come and didn't write anything else for years.

Graham has worked for Marvel Comics writing scripts (which was his storytelling apprenticeship), done an eight year stint as a copywriter in an advertising agency (where they pay you more for writing less) and was the Children's Editor for Publishing News. He has also written a number of TV and film-related books, including SpiderMan, Wallace and Gromit, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Judge Dredd.

Gwen Millward

Gwen Millward studied illustration in Edinburgh and now spends all of her time painting and writing stories for children about her favourite subject, beasts. Her first book for Puffin, Guess What I Found in Dragon Wood was published in April 2007.

Henning Mankell

Henning Georg Mankellwas a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number of plays and screenplays for television.

He was a left-wing social critic and activist. In his books and plays he constantly highlighted social inequality issues and injustices in Sweden and abroad. In 2010, Mankell was on board one of the ships in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was boarded by Israeli military forces. He was below deck when eight or nine people were shot. Mankell shared his time between Sweden and countries in Africa, mostly Mozambique where he started a theatre. He made considerable donations to charity organizations, mostly connected to Africa.

Hilary McKay

Hilary McKay was born in Boston, Lincolnshire and is the eldest of four girls. From a very early age she read voraciously and grew up in a household of readers.

After reading Botany and Zoology at St. Andrew's University Hilary then went on to work as a biochemist in an Analysis Department. Hilary enjoyed the work but at the same time had a burning desire to write. After the birth of her two children, Hilary wanted to devote more time to bringing up her children and writing so decided to leave her job.

Hilary now lives in a small village in Derbyshire with her family. When not writing Hilary loves walking, reading, and having friends to stay.

Irfan Master

Irfan Master is the critically acclaimed author of Out of Heart, which was longlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal for Children and the UKLA Book Award 2018. His first novel, A Beautiful Lie, was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize, the Branford Boase Award for debut authors and was featured on the USBBY Outstanding International Book Honour List. He has made numerous contributions to published anthologies including a short story for A Change Is Gonna Come (2017), an award-winning anthology of short stories and poetry for young adults written by authors from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. Of Gujarati heritage, Irfan is based in south-east London.

Jackie Morris

Jackie Morris is a British writer and illustrator. Morris was born in Birmingham in 1961. Her family moved to Evesham when she was four. As a child she was told that she couldn't be an artist, but despite this information being drilled into her by teachers she decided to throw caution to the wind and learn to paint. 

On leaving college she found work in editorial, illustrating magazines like Radio Times, New Statesman, New Society and Country Living. She worked for years illustrating books and in 2005 her book The Seal Children won the Tir Na N-Og Award. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal for Something About a Bear, which she later won in 2019 for her illustration of The Lost Words, book of poetry by Robert Macfarlane with illustrations by Morris. 

James Mayhew

James Mayhew studied illustration at Maidstone College of Art. In 1994 he won one of the New York Times's Ten Best Illustrated Books awards for his work on The Boy and the Cloth of Dreams (Walker). Recently he has been writing stories especially for illustrators. James lives in Letchworth, Hertfordshire

Jenny McLachlan

Jenny McLachlan spent 13 years of her life teaching English: a job that combined her passion for the written word with her passion for showing off. It also provided her with the inspiration for her books. In the summer of 2014 she became a fulltime writer.

Jenny lives by the seaside with her husband and two small but fierce girls. In addition to writing, she enjoys exploring the South Downs, running and, if it will embarrass her husband enough, jiving in any vaguely suitable situation. 

Jerome Martin

Jerome Martin has written children’s books about science, history, Shakespeare and food. Before joining Usborne in 2014, he spent a decade studying literature at Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Iowa, and several years behaving responsibly in a copywriting office. Now, he spends his working hours researching delightful and amazing facts, his evening hours parenting two children, and the minutes in-between writing poetry.

Jess Mikhail

Jess has been an illustrator since 2002. Her favourite place is her tiny home where she lives with her tiny dog. It is there that she loves to draw and create funny characters with bright colours and fancy patterns. There is nowhere else she'd rather be (except a car boot sale or a charity shop maybe).

Jill Murphy

Jill Murphy's books sell in their hundreds of thousands. Perhaps best known for her classic Worst Witch stories, which she started writing when she was fifteen, she is also a hugely successful picture book author and illustrator. Peace At Last was her first picture book and was commended in the 1980 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. She went on to win the Smarties Prize for The Last Noo-Noo. Jill lives in Cornwall with her son.

John McNally

John McNally is a screenwriter who has worked with Aardman, Sony and the BBC. Infinity Drake is his first novel and was written for his children (who, of course, knew nothing about it) as well as to escape development hell. Once it sold to a publisher he finally showed it to his kids. Luckily, they liked it, and now millions of others will too…

Jon Mayhew

Jon Mayhew lives on the Wirral Peninsula close to the Dee marshes with his wife, four children and a menagerie of pets. He has been a teacher for over twenty years and works with children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions.  As a child he used to play in the overgrown ruins of a Victorian zoo building dens in the bear pits and imagining that some of the animals still lurked in the thick rhododendrons. When Jon is not writing he enjoys running and has completed seven marathons. Traditional folk music is another passion and he plays mandolin in ceilidh bands. He also enjoys mooching around graveyards for fun and is always listening out for the sound of talons on stone and beaks click, click clicking!

Jonathan Meres

Jonathan Meres left school at the age of 16 to join the merchant navy and spent the next 7 years sailing around the world. Since then he has worked as an ice cream van driver and in Harrods, got a band together, appeared in a pop video and been a stand up comedian. He's won a Time Out Award for Comedy and been nominated for The Perrier Award at The Edinburgh Festival. He began writing full time in 1994: his bestselling World of Norm series is a comedy about a small boy whose life is very unfair...

Julie Mayhew

Julie Mayhew is an actress turned writer who still acts but mostly writes.  Her debut novel, Red Ink, was published by Hot Key Books in February 2013 and will come out in paperback in June 2013. She’s just finished writing her second book, Mother Tongue, with the support of the Arvon/Jerwood Mentoring Scheme.

Julie’s most recent play for BBC Radio 4, A Shoebox Of Snow, was nominated for Best Audio Drama at the 2012 BBC Audio Drama Awards. Her short stories are published in the UK and US, and her collected stories have twice been short-listed for the Scott Prize.

Karen McCombie

Karen McCombie is the bestselling author of 90 books for children and teenagers, including the series Ally's World, You, Me & Thing and St Grizzle's School For Girls, plus novels The Girl Who Wasn’t There, Catching Falling Stars and The Pearl in the Attic. Originally from Scotland, she lives in London with her husband, teenage daughter and beautiful-but-bitey cat. Karen does a lot of her writing on her laptop at a local garden centre cafe, since it has more cake and passing dogs to say hello to than her writing office at home...

Kei Miller

Kei Miller was born in Jamaica in 1978. He has been a visiting writer at York University in Canada, the Department of Library Services in the British Virgin Islands and a Vera Ruben Fellow at Yaddo, and currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. A Light Song of Light is his third poetry collection. He is the author of two previous poetry collections, Kingdom of Empty Bellies (Heaventree Press, 2006) and There Is an Anger That Moves (Carcanet, 2007). He is also the editor of Carcanet's New Caribbean Poetry: An Anthology. His fiction books include the short story collection The Fear of Stones (Macmillan, 2006; shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize), and the novels The Same Earth (2008) and The Last Warner Woman (2010), both published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in Surrey in 1990, and her earliest ambition was to be a cat, closely followed by a cat-owner or the first woman on Mars. She has achieved only one of these things, but discovered that being a writer lets you imagine whatever you want.

She started writing poetry in her final year at university, producing three poetry books and a play before she turned to fiction. Her bestselling debut The Girl of Ink & Stars, about a mapmaker’s daughter who must save her island, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2017 and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Her second standalone story, The Island at the End of Everything, was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children’s Book Award, and long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her third book, The Way Past Winter, was the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year 2018.

Kiran lives in Oxford with her husband, the artist Tom de Freston, and the fulfilment of one of her earliest ambitions: their cat, Luna.

Lisa Murphy

Lisa's background is in Fine Arts and Education. She's incredibly passionate about colours and believes that they can help to tell a story. Lisa and Adam have been working together as a married comics duo for five years. Lisa is a Canadian living in Glasgow with Adam and their little pickle (their nickname for their little baby).

Lydia Monks

Lydia Monks has illustrated many books, including Aaaarrgghh, Spider! and the Indie Kidd series. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Sheffield, England.

Margaret Mayo

Margaret Mayo is a British writer of children's literature and folktales since 1974. Born Margaret Mary Cumming on 10 May 1935 in London, England, the daughter of William John and Anna (Macleod) Cumming. On 28 July 1958, she married Peter Robin Mayo, they had three children: Roderick, Katrina and Andrew. She was formerly a teacher and now lives in Brighton.

Mary Murphy

Mary Murphy has an advanced diploma in Visual Communications and has written and illustrated a number of children's books. In addition to creating children's books, she teaches illustration. The author-illustrator lives in Galway, Ireland.

Megan McDonald

McDonald was born February 28, 1959, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to John and Mary Louise McDonald. She is the youngest of five girls, which served as the inspiration for The Sister's Club. She was awarded a B.A. from Oberlin College in 1981, and an M.L.S. from University of Pittsburgh in 1985.

She began her career as a children's librarian, working at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Minneapolis Public Library, and Adams Memorial Library in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Her first book, Is This a House for Hermit Crab?, came as a result of patrons asking her where to find a story she had told to children at a library. McDonald is married to Richard Haynes and lives in Sebastopol, California.

Mei Matsuoka

Mei is the daughter of a Japanese father and British mother. Born in Tokyo and moving to England at 11, she studied illustration and animation at Kingston University, London. She is an author and illustrator of picture books, mainly aimed at pre-school age children. Her stories explore serious/educational subjects, but vary in tone from comical to thought-provoking and often manifest a world embodying animals or non-human characters.

She examines themes of right and wrong, prejudice, stereotyping, psychology, reality and abstract thought. Mei is motivated by the passion to create something that touches people’s lives and hopefully leaves a positive impact on all. She enjoys expressing what is inside her, who she is and what she feels/thinks through illustration and storytelling. Mei is based in Buckinghamshire

Michaela Morgan

Michaela Morgan has written over a hundred books for children. She has been shortlisted for the Children's Book Award, been an International Reading Association Children's Choice and won a United Kingdom Reading Association award. Michaela is the author of Night Flight published by Frances Lincoln. She divides her time between Brighton, Rutland and France.

Michelle Magorian

Michelle Magorian was born in Portsmouth, England, and grew up in such diverse places as Perth, Australia, and Singapore. She now makes her home in London.

An actress, dancer, and writer by profession, Ms. Magorian has worked with numerous touring and repertory companies, and spent two years training as a mime at Marcel Marceau's world-renowned L'Ecole Intenationale de Mime in Paris, France. An absorbing interest in the history and nature of children's books led her to try her hand at writing for younger readers. Her first book, Good Night, Mr. Tom, grew out of a short story she had written about the meeting of the two main characters.

Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom

Mick Manning and Brit Granstrom have won many awards for their non-fiction picture books, including the Smarties Silver Award and the English Association Award. They are married, have four sons and spend their time between the Scottish Borders and Brita's homeland of Sweden. Their books for Frances Lincoln include Charles Dickens, An Extraordinary Life, What Mr Darwin Saw, Tail-End Charlie, Taff in the WAAF, Yuck!, Snap!, Dino-Dinners, Woolly Mammoth, the Fly on the Wall series and Nature Adventures.

Millie Murray

Millie Murray was born in London to parents of amaican heritage. She is a qualified general psychiatric nurse and also a youth worker. Millie writes novels for young adults, the first entitled Kiesha (1988). Her books tend to reflect black female, young adult experiences. She has worked in England and Wales in schools, libraries, colleges and a prison, facilitating creative writing workshops.

Millie has written for The Real McCoy, BBC TV’s black comedy sketch show. She was reator and co-writer of The Airport (BBC Radio 4 1995/96), the first radio series in Britain that epitomised black people’s lives within a humorous setting. It was shortlisted for a radio comedy award. For several years she has been the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of East London. Millie lives in East London.

Mique Moriuchi

Mique Moriuchi makes pictures with paint, scissors, paper and glue. She love colour; her studio is messy, with paper trails often leading to the kitchen. Since completing her studies in illustration in 1999 (MA at Brighton University, BA at Norwich School of Art & Design), she has illustrated 23 picture books to date and was recently commissioned by Paperchase to work on a range of greeting cards. Mique currently lives in Bedford with her partner and two boys.

Miriam Moss

Miriam Moss was born in England, but grew up in Africa, China and the Middle East. She is the award-winning author of over 70 children's books. Girl on a Plane is her only older fiction title, her others are picture books. Miriam now lives in East Sussex.

In 1970, aged 15, she was on a plane that was hijacked and landed in the Jordanian desert. The hostage takers threatened to blow up the plane, killing all passengers. Eventually, the release of the hostages was negotiated and Miriam was freed. Girl On a Plane is her story, in which she recalls the details of those desperate days.

Nick Mohammed

Nick Mohammed is an established actor with recent roles in Ridley Scott’s The Martian, The Sense of an Ending and Netflix’s Collateral. He also played Piglet in Disney’s latest action feature Christopher Robin. Nick’s television writing credits include the six-part series Intelligence, co-starring David Schwimmer. He has featured in a host of TV comedies including Sally4Ever, Camping, Uncle and Life’s Too Short.

On radio, following the success of his hit BBC Radio 4 debut Quarters, he went on to write and record Nick Mohammed in Bits, Apollo 21 and two series of Detective Sergeant Nick Mohammed. His recent live show Mr Swallow and the Vanishing Elelphant received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe; he will be shooting a pilot for Channel 4 in 2019. His debut children’s novel, The Young Magicians and the Thieves’ Almanac, was released last year and he is currently working on the sequel.

Nick Vincent Murphy

Nick Vincent Murphy is an Irish writer from Kilkenny, who is now based in Los Angeles. In 2007, he got his first break as a writer on the acclaimed television comedy-drama series The Running Mate, which won 'Best Single Drama' at the Irish Film and Television Awards. In 2010, his first feature film, Hideaways, was produced. It won the Méliès d'Argent Award for 'Best European Film' at the Strasbourg Film Festival.

Aside from working with Chris O'Dowd on the Moone Boy books, Nick has TV projects in development with Aardman Animation and Tiger Aspect, as well as film projects in the US.

Nicole Maubert

Nicole Maubert mixes hand-drawn and digital illustrations in her work, focusing mainly on the shapes and colours. She lives in Chavornay, Switzerland.

Poonam Mistry

Poonam Mistry is a freelance illustrator living in Leicester who graduated in 2010 with a degree in graphic design and illustration from the University of Hertfordshire. Her style incorporates her love of nature and her Indian roots and explores the relationships between pattern, shapes and colour. Poonam’s upbringing and childhood have heavily influenced her work, in particular being surrounded by Indian fabrics, Kalamkari textiles, Madhubani paintings and hand-painted ornaments. These patterns and intricate details are featured in her style of work.

She loves folklore tales and stories of Hindu gods and goddesses and these have been a rich source of inspiration in a number of her illustrations. Poonam’s work is drawn by hand with black ink before she uses computer software to add colour and adjust the composition of her illustrations.

Robert Muchamore

Robert was born in Islington in 1972 and spent thirteen years working as a private investigator. He loves Arsenal and watching people fall down holes. He hates swimming and getting chased by cows. He was inspired to create the CHERUB series by his nephews' complaints about the lack of anything for them to read!

Roger McGough

Roger McGough, OBE, was born in Liverpool in 1937. He studied at Hull University before becoming a secondary school teacher, and lecturing at colleges including the Liverpool College of Art. A well-known member of the 1960s pop group The Scaffold (whose hits included ‘Lily the Pink’ and ‘Thank U Very Much’) he was also a founder member of a group of like-minded writers from Liverpool who came together in the late 1960s to collaborate on several poetry collections, later becoming known as The Liverpool Poets.

Today Roger lives in Twickenham, London, with his family. He has written over 60 poetry books and collections, as well as scripts, poetry and lyrics for radio, television, theatre and film. He has also written for and presented BBC Radio programmes including ‘Poetry Please’ and ‘Home Truths’.

Ross Mackenzie

Ross MacKenzie is the multi- award-winning author of The Nowhere Emporium and Shadowsmith. His highly-acclaimed fantasy novel The Nowhere Emporium won numerous accolades including the Blue Peter Book Award and the Scottish Children's Book Award.The hotly anticipated sequel The Elsewhere Emporium will be published in September 2018.

Ross lives in Renfrew, Scotland, with his wife and two daughters, but spends much of his time in another world.

Ross Montgomery

Ross Montgomery started writing stories as a teenager, when he really should have been doing homework, and continued doing so at university. After graduating, he experimented with working as a pig farmer and a postman before deciding to channel these skills into teaching at a primary school. He writes his books when he should really be marking homework. His first novel, Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door, was published to huge critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and the Branford Boase Award.

Sally Morgan

Sally Morgan has written more than twenty books for children on subjects including history, science and emojis. Sally loves writing and thinks it is the best job in the whole wide world. Sally lives in Minnesota, USA with her husband and two children.

Sarah Mussi

Sarah was born in Cheltenham and raised in the Cotswolds, and received a BA from Winchester School of Art and an MA from the Royal College of Art. Sarah spent over fifteen years in West Africa as a teacher and now teaches English in Lewisham.

Sarah has written several books, has donated a story to an Amnesty International anthology, has given workshops for the SCBWI, and is the current Chair of the Children's Writers and Illustrators in South London society.

Sarah McIntyre

Illustrator and writer Sarah McIntyre is easy to spot in her pointy glasses and hats. Her books include the comic Vern and Lettuce, four books with Philip Reeve, including Pugs of the Frozen North and Jinks & O'Hare Funfair Repair, and her picture books include There's a Shark in the Bath and Dinosaur Police. She loves creating books and comics with friends and getting inspired by batting around ideas and drawings with them.

Sarah is immensely proud of Britain's amazing illustrators and how well their pictures tell stories. In 2015, she set up the #PicturesMeanBusiness campaign, calling for people to credit illustrators for their work.

Sarah was our Writer in Residence from February to August 2017. 

You can follow Sarah on Twitter @jabberworks.

Sarra Manning

Sarra Manning is a teen queen extraordinaire. She spent five years working on the legendary but now sadly defunct UK teen mag, J17, first as a writer and then as Entertainment Editor. She then joined the launch team and became editor of teen fashion bible Ellegirl UK. There followed a stint as editor of the BBC's What To Wear and consulting on Bliss, The Face and More. Sarra now writes for ELLE,  Grazia, Red, InStyle, The Guardian, The Mail On Sunday's You magazine and The Sunday Telegraph's Stella.

Her best-selling teen novels, which include Guitar Girl, Let's Get Lost and The Diary Of A Crush trilogy, have been translated into numerous languages and in 2008, she was short listed for the Book People's Queen of Teen award. In 2009, her first adult novel, Unsticky, was published by Headline Review. Sarra lives in North London.

Sir Michael Morpurgo

Sir Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain's best-loved writers for children. He has written over 100 books and won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, Blue Peter Book Award and the Whitbread Award. His recent bestselling novels include Listen to the Moon, A Medal for Leroy and Shadow. His novel War Horse has been successfully adapted as a West End and Broadway theatre play and a major film by Steven Spielberg. A former Children's Laureate, Michael is also the co-founder, with his wife Clare, of the charity Farms for City Children.

Children's Laureate 2003-2005

Sophie McKenzie

Sophie McKenzie is a best-selling authorof books for young adults, which have won several awards. McKenzie writes full-time and lives in London. McKenzie's books have mainly been published by Simon and Schuster.

Stefan Mohamed

Stefan Mohamed was born in 1988 in Kingston-upon-Thames, but spent most of his childhood in Powys, Wales. Fittingly for someone of both Jewish and Sri Lankan heritage growing up in rural Wales, much of his fiction deals with slightly out-of-place characters getting into scrapes in the countryside.

Stefan completed the first draft of his first novel, Bitter Sixteen, when he was 16. The quirky superhero adventure was eventually published in 2015 and became a Guardian Top Teen Read of 2015. The sequels, Ace of Spiders and Stanly’s Ghost, followed in 2016 and 2017. A stand-alone fantasy novel for adults, Falling Leaves appeared in 2018. Stefan is also a performing poet; his first collection of poetry was published in 2016. He has a degree in creative writing from Kingston University and lives in Bristol.

Susan Martineau

Susan Martineau is an author, editor and first-class fact finder who writes creative and educational books for children. Fascinated by strange and weird information, Susan’s books always shine a light into the most unusual corners of the world around us, sparking a passion for discovery and curiosity in her readers.

With over 20 years’ experience in book publishing, including a stint in non-fiction books at the BBC, Susan now spends a good deal of her time lost on the internet or rummaging through libraries researching, unearthing and checking facts for her books.

Susan has lived in various parts of the world from Holland and France to Malaysia and now London. 

Taran Matharu

Taran was born in London in 1990 and found a passion for reading at a very early age. His love for stories developed into a desire to create his own, writing his first book at nine years old. Straight after graduating with a first-class degree in business administration, Taran was keen to explore a new avenue and get inside the publishing world, landing an internship in digital sales at Penguin Random House, from June to September 2013.

At 22, while taking time off to travel, Taran began to write The Summoner series as part of NaNoWriMo 2013. After posting the story on Wattpad.com, it received over 3 million reads in less than six months. After this was featured by NBC News, Taran decided to launch his professional writing career, and has never looked back.

Taran was the BookTrust Writer in Residence in 2017/18.  

Tariq Mehmood

Tariq Mehmood was born in Pakistan and was brought to England in 1967 aged around seven to nine. He grew up in Bradford, where he was bussed to school (this racist practice was later suspended). He became homeless aged 16 and lived in parks and derelict buildings. He was a founding member of the Asian Youth Movement and United Black Youth league.

In 1981 he was imprisoned on terrorism charges as a part of ‘The Bradford 12’, who were all later acquitted. He wrote his first novel whilst he was on remand in Armley jail in Leeds. His novels are set against a backdrop of migration, war, identity, longing, loss and love. He is the co-director of the awardwinning documentary Injustice about deaths in police custody. He has three children and lives in Manchester.

Tom Mumbray

Tom studied History at university before joining Usborne in 2018. Since then he’s worked on books about Planet Earth, technology, maths and inventions (and learned lots of amazing facts about everything from paleoburrows to fireworks along the way).

Tony Mitton

Tony Mitton is a popular children's poet who has written a number of picture books including the Amazing Machines series for Macmillan Children's Books and Down by the Cool Pool for Orchard. His other titles include collections of poetry for older children. He lives in Cambridge.

Zanib Mian

Zanib Mian fell in love with writing at primary school. After studying molecular cell biology at University College London, she taught science in secondary school before deciding to move into children’s publishing. Zanib felt that characters from all minorities were missing from books for young children and launched Sweet Apple Publishers with a clear commitment to publishing inclusive books.

Her books include Oddsockosaurus and The Robot That Said Moo. They have featured on the BBC’s CBeebies Bedtime Stories show and in the Guardian for their contribution to diverse children’s literature. The Muslims won the 2018 Little Rebels Award and was longlisted for the 2018 UKLA Book Awards. She has also been nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal. Zanib lives in Wembley, London.