Joanna Nadin is a winner of the Fantastic Book Award, the Surrey Book Award, Blue Peter 'Book of the Month' and Radio 4 Open Book 'Book of the Year'.

She has been shortlisted for the Booktrust Best Book Award and Queen of Teen, and Spies, Dad, Big Lauren and Me was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club.

In 2011, Penny Dreadful is a Magnet for Disaster was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Joe All Alone was nominated for the 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

She writes the Flying Fergus series with Sir Chris Hoy. Joanna previously worked as a policy writer for the Labour Party and a special adviser to the Prime Minister.

She continues to freelance as a speechwriter and editor, and lectures in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Swapna Haddow trained as a doctor, but after discovering she didn't like blood, decided on a career change and wrote her first book Dave Pigeon: How to Deal With Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers.

Swapna now lives in New Zealand with her husband, their son and their dog. You can usually find Swapna writing, reading or eating Jaffa Cakes. Sometimes you might find her doing all three at the same time.

Abie Longstaff is the eldest of six children and grew up in Australia, Hong Kong and France. She knows all about squabbling and bossing younger sisters around so she began her career as a barrister.

She started writing when her children were born. Her books include The Fairytale Hairdresser series and The Magic Potions Shop books. She has a life-long love of fairy tales and mythology and her work is greatly influenced by these themes.

Abie got the idea for the Trapdoor Mysteries from her parents' house in France. The house is big and old, with lots of rooms and outbuildings. In one of the bedrooms, there is a secret entrance hidden in a fireplace. It leads to a room that was used by the French Resistance during the war. It was the perfect idea for a book!

Abie lives with her family by the seaside in Hove.

Mike Byrne grew up on the Wirral near Liverpool before moving to Wales to study Illustration at Glyndwr University. He began his career as a designer for a greetings card company and then became a studio manager for a licensed stationery designer before leaving to fulfil his dream of illustrating children's books.

Mike now lives in Surrey with his wife, cat and two sons where he spends his days doodling and illustrating children's books fuelled only by tea and biscuits. Mike illustrated the Jack's Mega Machines series for Simon & Schuster. The Return of Sproutzilla is his fourth title with Macmillan

Gustavo Mazali has been drawing since he was a little boy. Now he illustrates comics and children's books. He lives in Buenos Aires.