Emily Brown and Father Christmas

Cressida Cowell is the number one bestselling author-illustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once book series. How to Train Your Dragon is also an award-winning DreamWorks film franchise. Cressida is an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust, a trustee for World Book Day and a founder patron of the Children's Media Foundation. She lives in Hammersmith with her husband, three children and a dog called Pigeon.

Cressida was our Writer in Residence in 2016–17 and the Waterstones Children's Laureate 2020–2021

Neal was born and raised in Chichester, West Sussex but has since lived in Newcastle, Brighton, London, Slough and Glasgow. He now lives in Portsmouth with his family. He likes living by the seaside.

His studio is a room in his house where he can make a mess. The walls are covered with pictures, drawings, scribbles, badges, photos, posters, packaging and anything else that he finds inspiring. He uses all sorts of different media to make his illustrations: pencils, paint, pens, ink, pieces of collage, biros, photocopiers, cameras, a computer, bits of stick, old toothbrushes, dough, hair, leaves, anything that comes to hand... He likes his illustrations to appear as fresh and spontaneous as possible.