Your Hand in My Hand

Mark Sperring was born in 1963 in Swindon but grew up in Weston-Super-Mare. He became hooked on books after reading 'Gobbolino the Witch's Cat', and 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. He left school at 16 and worked at a printers for a few years, before moving to Bristol and working at a bookshop. He started writing, receiving the usual slew of rejection letters (with some lovely encouraging letters and near misses along the way) before getting published. Although a published author now, Mark still loves his day job - if he's not writing a book he's unpacking one! He loves running, going to the cinema and music (anything from hip hop to country!). Favourite books include 'Where the Wild Things Are', ' To Kill a Mocking Bird', and 'The Little Prince' or anything by Tove Jansson, Paul Auster, Richard Yates and Haruki Murakami. And of course 'Gobbolino the Witch's Cat'!

Britta Teckentrup is an illustrator, fine artist and writer. She was born in Hamburg, Germany, and went on to study at St. Martin's College and the Royal College of Art in London. Britta has created over 40 books, translated in 20 languages worldwide, and her artwork has been shown at exhibitions all over the world. She lives and works in Berlin with her artist husband and their son.