Though readers often find themselves inadvertently laughing aloud as they read Anne Fine's novels, as she herself admits, "a lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises serious social issues. Growing up is a long and confusing business. I try to show that the battle through the chaos is worthwhile and can, at times, be seen as very funny." In 1994, this unique combination of humour and realism inspired the hit movie MRS. DOUBTFIRE, based on Anne's novel MADAME DOUBTFIRE and starring the late comedic genius Robin Williams. Anne is best known in her home country, England, as a writer principally for children, but over the years she has also written eight novels for adult readers. Seven of these she describes as black - or sour - comedies, and the first, THE KILLJOY, simply as "dead black". These novels have proved great favourites with reading groups, causing readers to squirm with mingled horror and delight as she peels away the layers in all too familiar family relationships, exposing the tangled threads and conflicts beneath. (It's perhaps not surprising that Anne has openly expressed astonishment at the fact that murder in the domestic setting is not even more common.) Anne has written more than sixty books for children and young people. Amongst numerous other awards, she is twice winner of both the Carnegie Medal, Britain's most prestigious children's book award, and the Whitbread Award. Twice chosen as Children's Author of the Year in the British Book Awards, Anne Fine was also the first novelist to be honoured as Children's Laureate in the United Kingdom. In 2003, Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Her work has been translated into forty five languages. Anne Fine lives in the north of England and has two grown up daughters.

Melvin Burgess is a British author of children's fiction. His first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. He gained a certain amount of notoriety in 1996 with the publication of Junk, which was published in the shadow of the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and dealt with the trendy and controversial idea of heroin-addicted teenagers. Junk soon became, at least in Britain, one of the best-known children's books of the decade. Burgess again courted predictable controversy in 2003, with the publication of Doing It, which dealt with underage sex. America created a show based on the book, Life As We Know It. In his other books, such as Bloodtide and The Ghost Behind the Wall, Burgess has dealt with less realist and sometimes fantastic themes. In 2001 Burgess wrote the novelisation of the film Billy Elliot, based on Lee Hall's screenplay. Polyphony is typical for his most famous novels. http://us.macmillan.com/author/melvin...

ROWENA HOUSE spent years as a foreign correspondent in France, Africa and then again in Europe before turning to fiction. She visited the WW1 battlefields of the Western Front repeatedly to research her prize-winning First World War short story, The Marshalling of Angelique’s Geese (WAR GIRLS, 2014) and again for her debut novel, THE GOOSE ROAD (Walker 2018). Her fascination with the Great War, the trenches, and the appalling artillery battles of the Somme and Verdun began at school when studying the war poets, Wilfred Owen in particular. As an adult, she experienced war first-hand as a Reuter’s reporter in Ethiopia, and saw its terrible impact on civilians. Now settled in the English countryside with her husband and son, Rowena holds a Master’s degree in rural economics and another in creative writing, and mentors fiction writers alongside her journalism and storytelling.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. British children's and young adult author Mary Hooper was born in 1944, in Barnes, then in Surrey, nowadays in South West London. She left school at fifteen, and went to work as a window dresser, and then as a secretary. She eventually returned to school, as an adult student, earning a degree in English from Reading University. Hooper began her writing career with short stories, publishing in women's and teen magazines. Her first book, Jodie, was published in 1978. She is married, has two children, and one grandchild, and lives in Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire.

Matt Whyman has written widely for all ages across a range of subjects - in fiction, advice and memoir. His adult books include Man or Mouse, Columbia Road, Oink! My Life With Minipigs (published in paperback as Pig in the Middle), and Walking with Sausage Dogs (Hodder). For teens, he is the award-winning author of titles including Superhuman, XY, XY:100, Boy Kills Man, The Wild (Hodder), the So Below trilogy, Inside the Cage, Goldstrike (Simon & Schuster), The Savages and American Savage (Hot Key Books) Matt has also written many books under different names. Notably, he serves as literary executive for the reclusive Romanian End Time theorist, folk tale scholar and Carnegie-nominated mystery writer, Lazlo Strangolov. Two children's novels by Lazlo have surfaced to date - Feather and Bone and Tooth and Claw (Walker). Co-writing with Michelle Misra, under the pen name of Jack Carson, Matt is responsible for the Battle Champions action series for younger readers (Simon & Schuster). A graduate from the University of East Anglia's MA in Creative Writing, Matt is often invited to teach the subject for writers of all ages. Recently, he has hosted workshops across Russia and the Middle East. He has also served on judging panels for the Costa Children's Book of the Year Award and the Booktrust Teenage Book Prize. In 1995, Matt became the first agony uncle for 19 magazine, and has subsequently written regular advice columns for B, Fox Kids, AOL UK and an 18 year residency at Bliss. Over the years he has co-presented a series of ITV's cult Saturday morning show, Love Bites, and a live weekly phone-in on LBC. He is currently resident agony uncle on BBC Radio 1's The Surgery and a relationship advisor for TheSite.org - the UK's leading advice and information resource for 16-25 year olds. Matt has written many national health awareness campaigns - for clients including BBC Radio 1, Brook Advisory, NSPCC, Macmillan and the Health Education Authority - as well as numerous articles and features for national newspapers and magazines. He has also fronted several long-running opinion pages for Eve and Marie Claire. Matt is married with four children, and lives in West Sussex, UK.