My Mum is a Lioness

Swapna Haddow trained as a doctor, but after discovering she didn't like blood, decided on a career change and wrote her first book Dave Pigeon: How to Deal With Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers, which won the Greenhouse Funny Prize. Swapna now lives in New Zealand with her husband, their son and their dog. You can usually find Swapna writing, reading or eating Jaffa Cakes. Sometimes you might find her doing all three at the same time. Dapo Adeola is a young illustrator and character designer who is new to the picture book world. His first book, Look Up! was written by Nathan Bryon and published by Puffin in June 2019 to great acclaim. Born in Britain and of Nigerian heritage, Dapo's work tends to revolve around creating characters and imagery that challenge gender norms and equality politics in a fun and upbeat manner. An avid believer in the importance of equal representation in the creative arts, Dapo runs illustration and character design based workshops with children in and out of schools to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to inner city children of various ethnicities. Dapo lives in London.