TheFaber Book of Bedtime Stories

Ann Jungman was born in London, of German Jewish refugees. Before becoming an author, Ann trained as a lawyer and taught at a primary school. She has published over a hundred books including the Vlad the Drac series, The Most Magnificent Mosque, Resistance, Betrayal and Siege.Emma Carroll was a secondary school English teacher for many years. Secrets of a Sun King is Emma's eighth novel; she has also written the highly-acclaimed Frost Hollow Hall, The Girl Who Walked on Air, In Darkling Wood, The Snow Sister, Strange Star and Letters from the Lighthouse. She lives in the Somerset hills with her husband and two terriers.Kieran Larwood was born in Kenya. He moved to the UK when he was 2 and lived in various places before settling on the Isle of Wight, where he can still be found: exploring rockpools, climbing trees and writing - slowly disappearing behind a mountain of notebooks and empty coffee mugs. He taught Reception class in a primary school for fifteen years before becoming a full-time author. Kieran's books have won several awards, including the Blue Peter Best Story and the Prix Sorcières. He is inspired by a life-long love of fantasy stories, which all began when - as a young boy - he picked up a copy of The Hobbit and saw the map inside. It just goes to show - you never know where opening a book will lead.Claire Barker is an author and illustrator. When she's not busy doing this she spends her days wrestling sheep, battling through nettle patches and triumphantly catching rogue chickens. She used to live on narrow-boats but now lives with her delightful family on a small, untidy farm in deepest, darkest Devon. She is a regular helper at her local school and still loves nothing more than losing herself in a good story. Claire is the author of middle grade animal fantasy fiction series Knitbone Pepper.Natasha Farrant is the author of the Costa Award winning novel, Voyage of the Sparrowhawk, bestselling middle-grade novel, The Children of Castle Rock, the acclaimed Bluebell Gadsby series and Carnegie-longlisted and Branford Boase-shortlisted YA historical novel The Things We Did For Love. She was shortlisted for the Queen of Teen Award 2014. She lives in London with her family.Pip Jones lives in west England with her husband, her two daughters and a real invisible cat. She writes a lot. She is the author of eight Squishy McFluff books, several picture books (including Daddy's Sandwich, The Chocolate Monster and Quick, Barney, Run!) and her young series Piggy Handsome.Martyn Ford is a journalist and award-winning author from the UK. His debut middle-grade children's book, The Imagination Box, was published by Faber in 2015 to critical acclaim and has since become a trilogy. This was followed by 2019's standalone title, Chester Parsons is Not a Gorilla. His adult debut, Every Missing Thing, was released in 2020, from Amazon imprint Thomas & Mercer. Martyn spends a lot of his time thinking, writing and thinking about writing. He has a lot of titanium implants in his mouth because most of his big teeth didn't appear but, get this, no one knows why . . .Lou Kuenzler grew up on a windy sheep farm in Devon. She is the author of numerous books for children, including My Digger is Bigger, Eat Your People, the Shrinking Violet series, the Princess DisGrace series, the Bella Broomstick series, Not Yet, Zebra, Calm Down, Zebra and Our Beautiful Game. She lives in London with her family.Ingrid Persaud was born in Trinidad. Her debut novel, Love After Love, won the Costa First Novel Award 2020 and the Author's Club Best First Novel Award 2021. She also won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018 and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017. She read law at the LSE and was an academic before studying fine art at Goldsmiths and Central Saint Martins. Her writing has appeared in several newspapers and magazines including Granta, Prospect, Five Dials, the Guardian and National Geographic. Lucy Farfort is an illustrator and writer of Caribbean and English heritage, passionate about diversity in children's publishing. In 2017 Lucy was awarded first prize for illustration, in Faber Children's inaugural FAB Prize competition. Her illustrations were also selected for publication in the 2019 CLPE Reflecting Realities report. Lucy illustrated Afraid of the Dark and New Baby and her author/illustrator debut In Our Hands. She has also written a story in The Faber Book of Bedtime Stories.Reba Khatun is a forty-something mother of two girls. She is a librarian by day and aspiring children's author by night. She has published a short story, poems and artwork in various anthologies and won the 2009 Muslim Writers Awards and 2018 FAB Prize. She is currently writing a horror story set in Bangladesh.Aisha Bushby was born in Bahrain and has lived in Kuwait, England and Canada. Now she mostly lives in the worlds of her children's books. She was selected as one of only four previously unpublished authors in the anthology A Change is Gonna Come, which was awarded a YA Book Prize Special Achievement Award. Her debut novel A Pocketful of Stars was longlisted for the Carnegie medal and shortlisted for the Branford Boase award. She is also the author of the Moonchild series and A Flash of Fireflies.A lawyer in a previous incarnation, Ayesha escaped city life and found writing. She primarily writes for young people, ranging from picture books to middle grade and young adult. Her work has won or been placed in a number of competitions supported by, amongst others, Faber, Bloomsbury, Jericho Writers and Spread The Word. Ayesha is passionate about sharing books and runs a reading for pleasure 'Book Explorers' initiative in primary school libraries. She also supports children's literacy through her work with the charity Doorstep Library that takes inclusive books to the 'doorsteps' of some of London's most disadvantaged postcodes. Ayesha believes in social justice and volunteers for Home-Start, where she supports challenged families in her borough, and has recently been involved in lockdown virtual literacy sessions for pre-school children.Rashmi Sirdeshpande is a lawyer turned children's author, with two young children who ask her lots of questions. Rashmi writes non-fiction picture books that ignite children's curiosity, as well as fictional stories that crackle with imagination. Her books include Never Show a T-Rex a Book, Dosh, How to Change the World and Good News. When she's not playing with words, you'll find her on her yoga mat twisting herself into all sort of shapes.Michael Mann is a primary school teacher by day, and mostly writes when he should be sleeping at night. He was a winner of SCBWI's Undiscovered Voices 2020, and the 2019 London Writer's Award (Spread the Word) and is the author of Ghostcloud. He is passionate about diversity in children's literature as a person of British and Indian heritage. Michael was born in London but moved to North Yorkshire when he was ten. He now lives with his partner and children in London. He's a fan of board games, reading, cloud spotting and outdoor swimming. He swam from England to France across the English Channel as part of a team of six. He won his first writing competition at school aged 10, for a poem about potatoes. He had to shake hands with a giant potato in front of the whole school and still has the photo to prove it.Hannah Lee was born in London, where she still lives. She always loved books, but yearned to see more stories that featured children like her - so now she is writing them! My Hair was her debut picture book, which was Highly Commended in the 2017 FAB Prize for writing.Based in Devon and instantly recognisable in her pointy specs, writer-illustrator Sarah McIntyre loves
exploring the world with her sketchbook. Her solo picture books include the Grumpycorn books and The
New Neighbours and she's written and drawn a comic called Vern and Lettuce. She has also co-authored
many longer books with Philip Reeve, including Oliver and the Seawigs, Pugs of the Frozen North and their
latest series about Kevin the roly-poly flying pony. She's delighted to be illustrating The Faber Book of
Bedtime Stories and working with such a wide variety of authors.Kate Saunders has been writing children's books for two decades and her backlist includes classics such as Beswitched, Magicalamity, The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop and The Curse of the Chocolate Phoenix, with her 10th book for children, The Great Reindeer Disaster, publishing this Christmas. She began with the Belfry Witches series, packed with humour and magic, themes that have remained throughout her stories. Kate was a contributor to the 2016 Winnie the Pooh official sequel. Her latest two novels, Five Children on the Western Front and The Land of Neverendings have received rave reviews and awards accolades. Five Children won the Costa and was shortlisted for the Guardian Prize. Both were shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and heralded again and again as the best books of the year by fellow authors and national publications alike. Living in London, Kate is a true storyteller and her magical, wickedly hilarious novels allow young readers to escape their everyday lives into wonderful worlds where they are empowered to explore and enjoy themselves. She is a national treasure.