Escaped teacher, now writing for children with 46 books published so far, ranging from early reading material to teenage novels. I've written 4 books for Franklin Watts, 4 for Wayland and one for Hodder.

I'm married with two grown up children and five grandchildren, no pets, though I used to have three beautiful cats, guinea pigs and rabbits. When I was a child, we kept chickens and I loved them, too.

I always have my nose in a book. I read both adult's and children's books. My favourite children's books include The Railway Children by E Nesbit, Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson, River on the Say by Philippa Pearce. My adult reading varies from Charles Dickens to many modern authors. I enjoy listening to music, classical, jazz and some pop.

Barbara Mitchelhill was born in Rochdale and trained as a teacher. While she was teaching, she began writing for BBC children's TV and went on to write for educational publishers, before writing novels for children.

She makes school visits all over the country, and enjoys appearing at literary festivals and talking to teachers and librarians, some as far away as the Caribbean. Her hobbies include reading, theatre, music, gardening and walking her border terrier, Ella.

She lives in Staffordshire and has two grown-up daughters and four grandchildren.

Highly-respected poet Tony Mitton has written many titles for children, including the picture books illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees: Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus!, Down by the Cool of the Pool, Spookyrumpus (winner of the Sheffield Book Prize, the Dundee Book Award and the Portsmouth Book Award) and Jolly Olly Octopus among many others.

In 2014 Tony won the prestigious CLPE Poetry Award for his retelling of Wayland. Tony spends his time writing, giving poetry performances and visiting primary schools. He lives in Cambridge.