Nick Dowson, now an English and Drama teacher, has worked as a bracken cutter, a graphic designer, and as one of the dynamite crew for a survey company. Nick lives with his partner in Suffolk.

Jane Chapman, who does all her painting in her kitchen and has a seventy-year-old tortoise (which is now a family heirloom!), is also the illustrator of the non-fiction bestseller The Emperor's Egg (9780744582215).