Scary Tales: Chris Priestley, Chris Riddell and Sally Gardner

Sally Gardner is a multi-award-winning writer whose books have sold more than 1.6 million copies in the UK alone and have been translated into 22 languages. Her books for young children, include I, Coriander, The Red Necklace, The Double Shadow and Maggot Moon, which drew on her experience of being dyslexic. Sally’s novel Tinder is a modern gothic story based on the fairy tale The Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen.



Chris Priestley has had huge success with his Tales of Terror books and Tom Marlowe Adventures, and recently The Dead Men Stood Together and The Last of the Spirits. His novels are inspired by the long-loved tradition of unsettling stories by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley and he has been hailed by The Times as 'a master of horror and suspense'.



Chris Riddell is the author of the Goth Girl series of books which follows the adventures of Ada Goth in her haunted house, Ghastly-Gorm Hall.  Chris is also well known for his Ottoline books and illustrating the work of everyone from Neil Gaiman to Paul Stewart, and now  Russell Brand. He is also an accomplished artist and a political cartoonist for the Observer, the Economist and the Independent.  He has won many awards for his work, including the Nestlé Gold Award and the rare honour of two Kate Greenaway Medals.

Julia Eccleshare is a writer, broadcaster and lecturer as well as Children’s Books Editor of the Guardian. She is chair of the Guardian Children’s Book Prize and founder and chair of the Branford Boase first novel prize. She has judged numerous other prizes including the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Whitbread Children’s Book Prize. She won the Eleanor Farjeon Award 2000 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to children’s books.  Julia is a founder member of the steering committee for the Children’s Laureate, and a trustee of Listening Books and the Poetry Book Society.