Mystery & Mayhem

Julia Golding is a multi-award winning writer for children and young adults. She also writes under the pen names of Joss Stirling and Eve Edwards. Well over half a million of her books have been sold worldwide in more than twenty different languages.

Frances Hardinge spent a large part of her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, a few years later a persistent friend finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of Fly By Night, her first children's novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. She has since written many highly acclaimed children's novels including, Fly By Night's sequel, Twilight Robbery, as well as the Carnegie shortlisted Cuckoo Song and the Costa Book of the Year winner, The Lie Tree.

Clementine Beauvais is an academic and writer of children’s books. She is currently lecturer at the University of York where she researches childhood and education. Her contribution to Mystery & Mayhem is ‘The Mystery of the Green Room’, described by Katherine Woodfine as ‘a brain-boggling Agatha-Christie style puzzle that even Miss Marple might struggle to solve’.

Elen Caldecott started her literary career when she was very young, writing sequels to some of her favourite books because she couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the characters. Before becoming a published author, Elen worked as an archaeologist, a nurse, a theatre usher and a museum security guard. Her first book was How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant. Elen Caldecott’s contribution to Mystery & Mayhem, ‘Rain on My Parade’, is a deliciously complex modern day puzzler.

Born in Wales, Susie Day moved to Oxford to read English Literature at Oxford University and continues to live in Oxford now she’s a children’s writer.   Her novels for children include Big Woo!, Girl Meets Cake, and The Secret of Sam and Sam. Susie’s contribution to Mystery & Mayhem, ‘Emily and the Detectives’, is about the capable Emily who outsmarts her detective dad, Mr Black, and the clueless Lord Copperbole.

Helen Moss is the author of many best-loved books for children, including the Adventure Island series and Secrets of the Tombs series. She lives near Cambridge with her family--including a menagerie of dogs, hens, gerbils and lizards.

When not writing, she can be found taking the dogs for long walks, climbing trees, playing badminton and, whenever possible, climbing up or skiing down mountains.

Sally Nicholls grew up in Stockton-on-Tees, and after school, travelled the world, working for a period at a Red Cross hospital in Japan. Sally's first novel, Ways to Live Forever, won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and she has been shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Costa Children's Book Award, the YA Book Prize and the Carnegie Medal, twice. She lives in Liverpool with her husband and two sons.

Kate Pankhurst has an MA in Children's Book Illustration. She has illustrated books by Ian Whybrow (author of 'The Bedtime Bear' and 'The Tickle Book') and Marjorie Newman ('Mole and the Baby Bird').

Harriet Whitehorn lives in London with her husband and her three daughters. She currently works for English Heritage and is the author of the Violet and the Pearl of the Orient series. Harriet’s contribution to Mystery & Mayhem, ‘The Murder of Monsieur Pierre’, is set on the streets of 1870s Soho.