Full, Full, Full of Love

Trish Cooke

Former children's TV presenter Trish Cooke is an Olivier nominated playwright. She writes for theatre, TV, film and radio and is a multi-awardwinning children's author. Born and still living in Bradford, Trish's parents are from Dominica. Frustrated by the lack of roles for black women, Trish began writing plays she could act in herself. Similarly, when she had her first child, the lack of black characters in children's books drove her to create stories with black children in them.

Her most popular children's book, So Much, was voted one of the 100 Best Children's Books in 2016 by Time Out. It won the Smarties Book Prize and the W H Smith Award among others. In 2009, So Much was included in the National Strategy good practice publication on raising achievement of Caribbean children at foundation stage.

Paul Howard

I was born at home on April Fools Day. I always drew as a child. I would spend hours drawing my favourite pop stars and footballers. I remember especially liking drawing kings and queens for a history topic when I was about nine. I also liked to read - my favourite books included Joan Aitkins' stories about Arabel and her Raven, Mortimer, and the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I worked after leaving school and then went into Art College. I ended up doing a degree course in graphic design in Leicester. I picked up work illustrating books for Longman Educational, which led onto working with other publishers.