Jill Barklem (1951-November 15, 2017) was a British writer and illustrator of children's books. Her most famous work is the Brambly Hedge series. After an accident when she was thirteen, Jill was unable to take part in PE or games at school and instead developed her talent for drawing and art. On leaving school, she studied illustration at St Martin's in London. She became a full-time illustrator. She spent five years on research before she started to write her first stories about the mice of Brambly Hedge.