Em Lynas (Author)
Em Lynas is a children's author with a love of silly poetry and nonsense rhymes. Em has been a primary school teacher and an educational publisher and is now an author of funny picture books. Her book, The Goat and the Stoat and the Goat, was shortlisted for the 2025 Laugh Out Loud Award. She lives by the seaside on the North East coast with her husband, Geoff, and although she did have pets when her children lived at home; hamsters, guinea pigs, a rabbit and a jar of stick insects, she is currently petless.

Anuska Allepuz (Illustrator)
Anuska Allepuz grew up in Spain, where she studied Fine Arts at the University of Salamanca. She has enjoyed drawing and writing stories for as long as she can remember and her work is driven by a love of storytelling. In 2016, she graduated with distinction from the MA in Children's Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. She likes exploring texture and using mixed media, handmade stamps and stencilled shapes.

Anuska has worked as a full-time illustrator with publishers in Spain, Mexico and Brazil, and her illustrations have been selected for exhibition at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, shortlisted for the AOI awards and Highly Commended in the Macmillan Prize. Some of her favourite things are drinking coffee with friends and playing chess.