Marcus Sedgwick
MARCUS SEDGWICK was born and raised in a small village in East Kent in the south-east of England. He now lives in the French Alps.
Marcus is a writer of novels for adults, novels for younger people and of non-fiction. He even published a couple of picture books once but that’s a secret. He is winner of many prizes, most notably the 2014 Michael L. Printz Award for his novel Midwinterblood. Marcus has also received two Printz Honors, for Revolver in 2011 and The Ghosts of Heaven in 2016, giving him the most citations to date for America’s most prestigious book prize for writing for young adults. Other notable award winning books include Floodland, Marcus’ first novel, which won the Branford-Boase Award in 2001, a prize for the best debut novel for children published in the UK each year; My Swordhand is Singing, which won the Booktrust Teenage Prize for 2007, and Lunatics and Luck, part of The Raven Mysteries series, which won a Blue Peter Book Award in 2011.
His books have been shortlisted for over forty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (eight times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times). He has been nominated for another of the world’s pre-eminent prizes for writing for children – the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – five times: in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Marcus was Writer-in-Residence at Bath Spa University for three years, has reviewed for various national newspapers and magazines, and periodically teaches creative writing at Arvon and Ty Newydd. He has judged numerous books awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Costa Book Awards. He has illustrated some of his books, and has provided wood-engravings for a couple of private press books. He has worked for the British Council, promoting literature outside of the UK.
Ana Filomena Amaral
Ana Filomena Amaral is a Portuguese writer born in Avintes, Oporto, and now lives in Lousã.
She earned a master’s in contemporary economic and social history from the University of
Coimbra, and a specialization in documentary sciences. She is an experienced interpreter and
translator in several European languages, particularly German. The author works for the Minister of Education in Coimbra. She has already published five novels in Portugal and Vaulted Home is one of them. She has also published historical monographies, including her master’s thesis about the Portuguese First Minister Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo.
N.R. Baker
Niki Baker is an explorer. She doesn’t have Sherpas or a frozen moustache, she’s just got incurable wanderlust. Whether it’s the mountains of Albania, the islands of Indonesia or the jungles of Guatemala, she has always been happiest when she’s far off the beaten track. Niki also loves exploring the power of words and spent much of her childhood up a tree in Somerset with her head in a book, either lost in the worlds created by authors like C.S. Lewis, or writing truly awful tales of her own. Since then she has earned recognition for her travel writing, poetry, lyrics, flash fiction and short stories. She now lives in rural France with her soulmate, who is also a writer. Niki’s debut novel, the eco-thriller ’10:59′, was published in 2020.
J. Ekstam
Jane Ekstam, born in Cambridge, England, and now living in Sweden, is a professor of English literature at Østfold University College, Norway. During her long career in higher education, in both Sweden and Norway, she has published books, chapters and articles on a range of works of English literature, aspects of teacher education, and academic writing for undergraduates and postgraduates.
When Jane is not writing her trilogy on climate change – ‘Katja’s World Game’, she’s supervising graduate students, walking through the forests near her home in Trollhättan, Sweden, or playing with her grandchildren! She loves trees, her husband, her three grown-up daughters, and novels about climate change – especially those that give us hope.
Like my protagonist, Katja, I am a vegan, who struggled at first to forget the delights of mature cheddar cheese, Devon clotted cream, and butter shortbread. We have sold our car, grow our own vegetables (without the use of modern fertilisers), and generally try to avoid plastic. My husband and I also join climate strikes in different Swedish towns and cities.
The first novel in my trilogy, Katja’s World Game: The Game Begins, was published at the end of May (2022). The second and third novels will not be far behind! For more information, please see www.katjasworldgame.com.
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Anne Morddel
Anne Morddel a fifth generation native of northern California, who has spent the past 40 years living abroad in London, Paris, Istanbul, São Paulo, Curitiba and southwestern France.
She received her master’s degree in librarianship from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied children’s literature with Mae Durham Roger and worked as a children’s librarian in international schools. In addition to library work, she has published poetry, articles on children’s activities, travel articles, and children’s book reviews.
It was while living and working in Curitiba that she was inspired to write and illustrate The Big Field, which she hopes will bring a greater awareness of the wondrous beauty of and the need to preserve the Atlantic Rainforest.
Jean-Marc Ligny
Born in 1956 in Paris. Pursues high school studies that lead him to the baccalaureate, but no further. Very early plunged into science fiction (from the age of 8!), devotes himself to writing in this field from 1976, after unsuccessful musical attempts (as a rock guitarist). Publishes his first short story in 1978 with Denoël, in Philippe Curval’s anthology Futurs au Présent. His first novel, Temps Blancs, published the following year, was noticed by the critics and earned him a passage in Apostrophes (a famous literary TV show at that time). Decided to devote himself to writing full time when he “emigrated” to Brittany in 1985. Nevertheless, he worked for a few years (part-time) on a local editorial staff for a regional daily newspaper, Le Télégramme. After spending ten years in the Forez Mountains, returned in 2015 to live in Brittany (Morbihan) where he works full-time as a writer and translator. He has written about fifty short stories and forty novels, in many fields covered by science fiction and fantasy, including about fifteen for youth (10-15 years), which lead him to intervene in schools. He has also produced two international anthologies (one masculine and one feminine) on the theme of love, translated and published in Italy. He draws his inspiration from music (Furia!, La Mort Peut Danser), ethnology (Yurlunggur, Yoro Si), esotericism (Les Voleurs de rêves), history (La Mort Peut Danser) and ecology, especially climate change (AquaTM, Exodes, Semences, Alliances). He is also interested in fantasy (Yoro Si, Les Ailes noires de la nuit), cyberpunk (Cyberkiller, Inner City, Slum City), space-opera (Les oiseaux de lumière), or more political fields (Jihad, Aqua™). He also wrote some detective novels. Two trips to Burkina Faso and one to Ireland provided the setting for two of his major works: Yoro Si and La Mort peut danser. In the field of fantastic/horror, seeks an original approach to the genre, based on myths and legends of current and past civilizations… but does not neglect contemporary urban fantasy (La maison aux démons, Mal-morts). Is the winner of the main French prizes in the field of science-fiction: the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in 1997 for Inner City (J’ai Lu), the Rosny Aîné prize in 1999 for Jihad (Denoël / J’ai Lu) and in 2007 for Aqua™ (L’Atalante), the Tour Eiffel prize in 2001 for Les oiseaux de lumière (J’ai Lu), the Julia Verlanger Prize (endowed by the Fondation de France) in 2007 for Aqua™ – this last novel was published in Germany and China – and finally the European Utopian Prize in 2013 for Exodes (L’Atalante). Since the early 2000s, he has devoted most of his fiction to climate change and its social and environmental consequences: 4 novels have been published on this subject (Aqua™, Exodes, Semences, Alliances) as well as a dozen short stories.
Read our interview with Cara
Cara Hoffman
Cara Hoffman is the author of Running, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, an Esquire Magazine Best Book of 2017, and an Autostraddle Best Queer and Feminist Book of 2017. She first received national attention in 2011 with the publication of So Much Pretty which sparked a national dialogue on violence and retribution and was named Best Suspense Novel of the year by the New York Times Book Review.
Her second novel, Be Safe I Love You, was nominated for a Folio Prize, named one of the Five Best Modern War Novels by the Telegraph UK, and won a Sundance Institute Global Film Making Award.
Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review, Bookforum, Rolling Stone, Salon and NPR and she has been a visiting writer at Columbia, St. John’s and Oxford University. She is the recipient of a number of awards and accolades including a MacDowell Fellowship, an Edward Albee Fellowship, and a Cill Rialaig Fellowshp. She is the author of the classic children’s novel Bernard Pepperlin.
She currently lives in Manhattan and Athens, Greece with Marc Lepson and is at work on her fourth novel.
Harriet Springbett
Although Harriet Springbett always wrote stories while growing up in her West Dorset home, she qualified and worked as an engineer. During a Raleigh International expedition in Chile she realised that writing and discovering life were more important to her than engineering. She moved to France in 1995, where she studied French at Pau University and then worked as a project manager, magazine feature writer, translator and TEFL teacher. She now lives in Poitou-Charentes with her French partner and their teenage children. Harriet has written a trilogy of speculative fiction books about the magic of trees, based on legends and the scientific research into tree communication. Tree Magic, Tree Slayer and Tree Sacrifice are published by Impress Books and are suitable for teenagers (15+) and adults. Since her first literary success, aged 10, her short stories and poetry have been published in literary journals and placed in writing competitions, including a shortlisting in the Bath Short Story Award. She leads writing workshops, has judged the Segora international short story competition and blogs about being a writer in France at https://harrietspringbett.wordpress.com
Climate Fiction Writers League 