Best Friends

Mara Bergman is an award-winning poet and children's writer. She grew up on Long Island, NY, and always knew she wanted to write. Her poetry has been published widely in magazines and anthologies in the UK and abroad. Her short collection, The Tailor's Three Sons and Other New York Poems, won the 2014 Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition and was published in 2015 by Seren. Mara has always felt a strong link between poetry and picture books and began to write for children when her own were young.
She has published more than twenty books, including Snip Snap! (reissued as Snip Snap Alligator!), illustrated by Nick Maland, which won the Stockport Children's Book Award and, in the US, a Parents' Choice Award and the Society of Illustrators' Silver medal. In 2009 she won the Booktrust Early Years Prize for Oliver Who Travelled Far and Wide, also illustrated by Nick Maland. Mara works in London as a children's fiction editor and lives in Kent.
Visit her at www.marabergman.com Nicola Slater has been an illustrator for over 15 years. She has worked extensively in advertising, web and print with clients including Eurostar, Aviva and The Times. She has produced a broad array of picture books and fiction covers, including the hugely successful 'Princess Diaries' and the classic Enid Blyton series 'Malory Towers'. Nicola Lives in Manchester with her partner and son, with the occasional appearance of an ill-tempered cat.