Geraldine McCaughrean says that she began to write in order to overcome terrible shyness at school. She wrote about adventures she would never be brave enough to go on, and places too far away to visit, and then she read her stories to her friends at playtime. Twenty years later, her first story was published. Since then, she has written many books and has won the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children' s Book Award and the Guardian Children' s Fiction Prize. Geraldine lives in Berkshire. Tom Percival grew up in a caravan without electricity. He now lives in a house, and spends his time writing and drawing. He illustrates other people' s books as well as writing his own, and his artwork for Derek Landy' s Skulduggery Pleasant has been creeping out children all over the world for many years.