Magda was born in Wroclaw, Poland. After a few years spent working in the City of London and the birth of her two little girls, Magda turned her passion for drawing into a dream job. When she’s not drawing, she enjoys yoga, ice skating and DIY and would love to adopt a dog one day. Magda and her family live in leafy south London.
Mandy Stanley is an award-winning illustrator, author and designer who has published more than 200 picture, story and activity books for children. Mandy is based in her studio in Suffolk.
Mar Hernández is a professional illustrator from Spain, she is also known as “Malota” and develops work for different fields such as advertising, press and products. One of the fields that she enjoys most is illustration for children’s books. Mar is also an illustration teacher at several universities and is a cum laude doctor in Fine Arts from the University of Valencia, Spain.
Marcelo Badari is from Brazil and likes to create illustrations focused on ideas and characters, with pinches of humour and personal vision. His illustrations have been featured in magazines, books, posters, T-shirts, newspapers and websites in Brazil, USA and Europe. In his spare time he likes to create music and videos, and he enjoys hiking and meditation.
Maria grew up in a small town in western Slovakia and studied Graphic Design at Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czech Republic. After obtaining her BA, she moved on to studying illustration and printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, where she completed her education with an MA in Arts. She now works as a freelance illustrator.
At a very young age María found out that there are few things in life she enjoyed as much as listening to The Beatles and drawing. When she grew up she graduated in Art History at the University of Oviedo and soon after she studied Graphic Design at the Art School of Avilés. Nowadays she still listens to The Beatles and feels fortunate to be able to do what she loves the most for a living: illustration.
Lucy Zhang is an illustrator and designer from Sydney with a background in architecture. Apart from illustration, she also works in animation and game design. Lucy loves telling stories with bright colours and bold textures. She takes inspiration from travel, nature, and everyday magic. In her free time, you can find her relaxing with a good podcast while drawing fanart of her latest obsession.
Louie Stowell was born in London and has lived there ever since, except for a short stint in Watford to study advertising. She’s worked as a copywriter, cartoonist, PR and in-house fiction writer, and was Publisher at Ladybird/Penguin Random House before writing full-time.
Her 2019 debut, The Dragon in the Library, was followed by The Monster in the Lake in 2020 and The Wizard in the Wood in 2021. Otherland, a standalone middle-grade novel, followed in 2021. The first book in her series, Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good, was an instant #3 Sunday Times (UK) Bestseller.
