Biographical note

Lucinda Jacob is a poet, illustrator and author of fiction for young people. She has written and illustrated a number of picture books and storybooks for new readers, scripts for the national broadcaster RTÉ and poetry for older children, published in numerous collections.

Lauren O’Neill is a Wexford-born illustrator and NCAD graduate who now lives and works in Dublin. Her work can be found on the covers and in the interiors of several books for children including Blazing a Trail: Irish Women who Changed the World by Sarah Webb, and she is the proud winner of the Children’s Books Ireland Honour Award for Illustration 2016.

Jennifer Johnston is a Booker Prize-shortlisted author of more than twenty novels including How Many Miles to Babylon? Her 1979 novel The Old Jest won the Whitbread Award (since renamed the Costa Award) and was adapted as a film starring Anthony Hopkins. She was the recipient of the 2006 Irish PEN award and 2012 Irish Book Awards Lifetime Acheivement Award.