Jane Newberry is a children’s writer, living in Cornwall and yearning to be a grown-up poet. Retirement three years ago brought more time for trying new literary genres. Hoyden’s Trove (Wheelsong Books) is Jane’s debut […]

Emma Lee’s publications include “The Significance of a Dress” (Arachne, 2020) and “Ghosts in the Desert” (IDP, 2015). She co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea,” (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for magazines and blogs at https://emmalee1.wordpress.com. Her […]

Charlotte Oliver is an Ilkley Literature Festival New Northern Poet 2023 and was recently Lead Artist for the Yorkshire Coast on Spoken Word Power 2024. Published widely in journals and anthologies including Candlestick Press’ Christmas Walks, she has placed in a number of competitions including Wirral Poetry Prize, the Patricia Eschen Poetry Prize 2022 and Wetherby Festival Poetry Competition.

Amy Fox loves writing, nature and the outdoors. She is especially passionate about connecting people with the nature on their doorsteps and enjoys appreciating small, often overlooked details while finding fresh ways to observe and celebrate them.

Philip Waddell was born in the former British Guiana but has now lived for long enough in his Oxfordshire village to properly qualify as a villager. Since the 90s his poems for children and young people have appeared in anthologies by Macmillan, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Nosy Crow and many others.

Nick Fordham is a children’s doctor but dreams of his other life away from the hospital reading and writing poems and stories. He annoys his own children with poems, and has work published in The Dirigible Balloon and Ars Medica.

Anna Llewellyn is a Welsh writer, illustrator, and literary editor living in New York City. Her work has appeared in The Toy Press, Cleaver Magazine, and Bartleby Snopes, and her plays for children have been produced across New York state.

Sarah Ziman is a poet from Wales who likes cats, crisps, cake, reading and rhyme. She dislikes writing bios. She won the YorkMix Poems for Children Prize 2021, and enjoys annoying her own children by forcing them on nature walks or ‘dragging them into antique shops’. ‘Why did my Brain make me say it?’, her debut collection for children, is coming very soon.

Vicky Gatehouse is a zoologist, poet, volunteer tree-planter and children’s writer based in West Yorkshire. Her children’s poems have featured in Tyger Tyger, Dirigible Balloon, The Toy and Pan Macmillan anthologies. Vicky also writes picture books and was recently shortlisted for the Searchlight Awards and runner up for the Write Mentor Picture Book Prize.

Laura Theis’ work appears in  Poetry, Oxford Poetry, The Caterpillar, Magma, Rattle, Tyger Tyger, Aesthetica, iamb, etc. Her Elgin-Award-nominated debut how to extricate yourself (2020), an Oxford Poetry Library Book-of-the-Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things (2023) received the Live […]

Barbara Bleiman is an ex-English teacher and education consultant at the English and Media Centre (EMC), with a keen interest in poetry. She has written numerous articles and blogs and a book about English teaching, What Matters in English Teaching.

Claire Schlinkert is a British children’s writer, currently living with her family in Belgium. She loves writing poems and playing with words, and she has published her writing in anthologies and magazines, including Tyger Tyger, The Toy and Little Thoughts Press.

Arlette Manasseh likes films, novels, poetry and chocolate. Some of her favourite reads are middle grade verse novels. These poems are taken from a verse novel she is writing about a thirteen year old girl called Breeze who lives in a small coastal town, where bullying has become a big problem.

Sinéad Callanan is a teacher and poet from Limerick, Ireland. She is currently completing a Masters in Children’s Literature and Media. Her work has appeared in PaperBound Magazine, Little Thoughts Press and Paper Lanterns. Even more of her work has gone into making her friends, family and young pupils laugh.

Mark Bird is a children’s poet and teacher. He was born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire and now lives in London. Mark’s debut picture book, ‘Halloween Date From Hell’ came out in October 2022. Mark has featured in The Caterpillar, Gill Education’s ‘Over The Moon’ series, Brian Moses’ ‘The Best Ever Book of Funny Poems’ anthology and many magazines.

Linda lives in a leafy corner of England and is passionate about inspiring others with her poetry for children. Her work has been published widely online and in journals and anthologies.

Jane Thorp has had many poems published in magazines. She won the Yeovil Literary Prize for Poetry in 2023. She was shortlisted in The Plough Poetry Prize 2013, children’s category, and has been commended and shortlisted in other poetry prizes.

Debi Knight is a Neuro-diverse poet and short story writer based in West Yorkshire who considers herself a lifelong student. She writes the life she sees and feels around her – exploring connections between humans, nature and the effects of modern life on all.

Sarah Ziman is a poet from Wales who likes cats, crisps, cake, reading and rhyme. She dislikes writing bios. She won the YorkMix Poems for Children Prize 2021, and has poems in The Caterpillar, The School Magazine, The Toy, PaperBound, Paper Lanterns, Tyger Tyger, Little Thoughts Press, The Dirigible Balloon, Cricket, and anthologies by Macmillan and Pomelo Books.

Leigh Manley is a new poet from Wales. He likes watching rugby, drinking cups of tea, acting silly, and making up fun words and sentences! He is currently part of Literature Wales’ ‘Representing Wales’ writers’ development programme for 2023/24 and he’s had work published with The Dirigible Balloon. He is working on his first poetry collection for curious children and the young at heart.

Eibhlís Carcione is a bilingual poet and children’s author from Cork, Ireland. Her three poetry collections in Irish, Tonn Chlíodhna (2015), Eala Oíche (2019), and Bean Róin (2023), are published by Coiscéim. She has won numerous awards for her poetry.

Carole Bromley lives in York. Winner of 2022 Caterpillar Prize, she also has poems in Tyger, Tyger, Paper Lanterns, The Toy, Little Thoughts Press, Paperbound, The Dirigible Balloon, in anthologies from MacMillan, Emma Press and Nosy Crow as well as in her Smith/Doorstop collection for children, Blast Off!

Charlie Bown is a children’s poet and author. She has two children’s anthologies published through Magic Daisy Publishing and two of her poems appear in the Chasing Clouds anthology from The Dirigible Balloon. Her debut children’s chapter book is due to be published by Ventorros Press in 2023.

Holly Gordon Clark is a seventeen year old poet and works as a librarian and bookshop worker. Her work and writings have been published in Fireside Fiction, Cat Among the Pigeons and have been prized by St John’s Oxford.

Eleanor loved writing poetry as a child and now enjoys writing poems for others to enjoy. She is a doctor by day, working to help children with developmental difficulties. Eleanor has had poems published by The Dirigible Balloon and Tyger Tyger Magazine.

Catherine Olver is a writer and researcher with a PhD in children’s literature from the University of Cambridge. She has special interests in LGBTQ+ poetry and in how literature can help humans participate in their environments (whether urban or rural) with sensitivity and joy.

Jacqueline is a primary school teacher and an emerging writer from the Isle of Man. She has had poems published in The Caterpillar, Tyger Tyger and The Dirigible Balloon.

Kate Williams is a children’s poet, with numerous contributions to anthologies by UK publishers such as Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury and Hodder.