A Ticket to Kalamazoo! Zippy Poems to Read Out Loud

James Carter

After fifteen years of writing, performing and recording music (whilst doing a series of jobs from job centre interviewer to recruitment consultant), James went off to Reading University to do a B.Ed degree in primary education and an MA in children's literature.

He is now an award/prize-winning poet, as well as a non-fiction and educational writer. He is the author of many popular and best-selling poetry titles. He travels all over the UK to give lively poetry/music performances and workshops. In the last seventeen years, he has visited well over 1000 schools, and performed at various prestigious literary festivals, including Cheltenham, Hay and Edinburgh.

James lives in Wallingford with his four guitars, three ukuleles, two daughters and one wife.

Neal Layton

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.