Authors and illustrators

Karen McCombie began her writing career working as a journalist on teenage girls’ magazines. It is this, alongside her collection of childhood diaries and a bad habit of listening to conversations on buses when school is coming out, which have inspired her quirky humour and endearing characters. She has written over 80 books, and her series Ally’s World for Scholastic sold over 200,000 copies. Her hobbies include scribbling random observations in her notebooks, brushing cat hair from the keyboard of her laptop and posting nonsense on Instagram. She lives in Crouch End, London.

Karen McCombie began her writing career working as a journalist on teenage girls’ magazines. It is this, alongside her collection of childhood diaries and a bad habit of listening to conversations on buses when school is coming out, which have inspired her quirky humour and endearing characters. She has written over 80 books, and her series Ally’s World for Scholastic sold over 200,000 copies. Her hobbies include scribbling random observations in her notebooks, brushing cat hair from the keyboard of her laptop and posting nonsense on Instagram. She lives in Crouch End, London.

Emma Young lives in London and loves every cat that she meets, unconditionally and probably unrequitedly. She is the proud owner of a ginger mother-and-daughter team, Maggie and Wick, often referred to as Magwick. She tries to limit her Instagram uploads of Magwick to once a week because someone told her this was ‘acceptable’, but sometimes the challenge proves too great. She buys them the good food when she can afford it and has treated them to a litter palace with a roof. They repay her by sitting on her hands when she is trying to write, and always choosing the blackest clothes to sleep on.

Thomas Hegbrook is a nature lover with a talent for illustration and design. When he’s not creating beautiful books, he likes to spend time with his wife and son and their two dogs.