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Ann Cleeves
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer. On 26 October 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers' Association, the highest honour in British crime writing. Best known for her Shetland and Vera series, both of which have been serialised for TV, her books have been translated into twenty languages and in the autumn of 2016, Ann celebrated the publication of 30 novels in 30 years. Her newest series, The Two Rivers, is set in North Devon and won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel published in 2019.
Patrick Gale
Patrick Gale is author of 20 novels including A Place Called Winter (2015) which was was a Radio 2 Book Club selection, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, the Walter Scott Prize and the Green Carnation Award. He has written a two-part film, Man in an Orange Shirt. His first two novels, The Aerodynamics of Pork and Ease were published by Abacus on the same day in June 1986. The following year he moved to Camelford near the north coast of Cornwall and began a love affair with the county that has fed his work ever since.
Patrick lives on a farm near Land’s End with his husband, Aidan Hicks. There they raise beef cattle and grow barley. Patrick is obsessed with the garden, creating in what must be one of England’s windiest sites, England’s westernmost walled rose garden. As well as gardening, he plays both the modern and baroque cello. Patrick is a patron of the Charles Causley Trust and the Penzance LitFest, a director of Endelienta and artistic director of the North Cornwall Book Festival.
Michael Morpurgo
Michael is a renowned author, poet, playwright and librettist best known for his children's books. He grew up in London, Sussex and Canterbury before joining the army. After deciding this was not for him, he went on to become a teacher. Michael and his wife Clare then started a new chapter and set up the charity Farms for City Children, a charity enabling children from disadvantaged communities to experience the adventure of working together on our farms in the heart of the British countryside. They moved to Devon and set up the large house where the children could stay. It has been in Devon that Michael has written the majority of his books. He has received an abundance of awards for his children's stories and some of his works have become films and stage shows, such as the highly-acclaimed War House (1982). His titles include Why the Whales Came (1985), The Butterfly Lion (1996), Kensuke's Kingdom (1999), Private Peaceful (2003), Running Wild (2009) and An Eagle in the Snow (2016).
Alice Oswald
Alice was trained as a classicist at New College, University of Oxford. Her first collection of poetry, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile (1996), received a Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. Her second book, Dart (2002), was the outcome of years of research into the history, environment, and community along the River Dart in Devon. Oswald’s other collections of poetry include Woods, etc. (2005), winner of a Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize Weeds and Wild Flowers (2009), illustrated by Jessica Greenman; A Sleepwalk on the Severn (2009); and Memorial (2011), a reworking of Homer’s Iliad that has received high critical praise for its innovative approach and stunning imagery and which won the 2013 Warwick Prize for writing. Oswald was the first poet to win the prize. Her latest book is Falling Awake (2016). Oswald’s many honours and awards include an Eric Gregory Award, an Arts Foundation Award for Poetry, a Forward Prize for Best Single Poem and a Ted Hughes Award. (Credit: The Poetry Foundation).
Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve trained as an illustrator, and worked for many years providing cartoons and illustrations for the Horrible Histories and Murderous Maths books. He has written several highly acclaimed books for children and his first novel, the multi award-winning Mortal Engines, published in 2001, has been made into a film directed by Christian Rivers. His other novels include Carnegie winner Here Lies Arthur and the Goblins trilogy of comic fantasy stories. In 2013 he joined forces with illustrator Sarah McIntyre to create Oliver and the Seawigs, the first in a series of funny, highly-illustrated adventure stories which continued with Cakes in Space, Pugs of the Frozen North, Jinks and O'Hare Funfair Repair, the activity book Pug-A-Doodle-Do and Roly Poly Flying Pony: The Legend of Kevin. Philip returned to older fiction in 2015 with Railhead, a critically acclaimed adventure set in a future. The sequel, Black Light Express, was published in 2016, and the story concludes in Station Zero (2018). Philip lives on Dartmoor with his wife and son.
Sarah McIntyre
Sarah McIntyre is an award-winning British-American illustrator and writer of children's books and comics. She graduated in 1999 from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Russian and History of Art and earned her Master's Degree in Illustration at Camberwell College of Arts in 2007. She worked from a studio in South London until she moved to Devon in 2022.
Instantly recognisable in her pointy specs and hat, Sarah is the creative genius behind The Bookery brand, she said “Bookery made me think of rookery” and crafted the lettering and the curious rooks that have become an integral part of the bookshop and The Bookery outreach projects.
Sarah has written and illustrated several picture books including Grumpycorn and Don’t Call Me Grumpycorn. In 2013 she joined forces with co-author Philip Reeve to create Oliver and the Seawigs, the first in a series of funny, highly-illustrated adventure stories which continued with Cakes in Space, Pugs of the Frozen North, Jinks and O'Hare Funfair Repair, the activity book Pug-A-Doodle-Do and Roly Poly Flying Pony: The Legend of Kevin. Their new series Adventure Mice will be published in 2023.
Babette Cole
1949 - 2017
Brilliant, outrageous, entertaining and fearless, Babette Cole was one of the finest illustrators of her generation and her skill with a paintbrush was matched by her knack for coming up with witty and original stories.
Mal Peet
1947 - 2015
Malcolm Charles Peet was an English author and illustrator best known for young adult fiction. He won several honours including the Brandford Boase, the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize.
William Trevor
1928 - 2016
William Trevor KBE was an Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language.
