A Boy Called Christmas

Matt Haig was BookTrust's eighth online Writer in Residence. His first novel for young readers, Shadow Forest, won the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award and the Gold Smarties Award. He is also the author of various adult novels, including the bestsellers The Last Family in England and The Radleys. Reviewers have called his writing 'totally engrossing', 'touching, quirky and macabre' and 'so surprising and strange that it vaults into a realm all of its own'. His books have been translated into 25 languages. He lives in York.

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.