Beth Morrey
Beth Morrey is a former TV producer who worked on various shows including Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Four Year Olds and ITV’s 100 Year Old Drivers. After several attempts at completing a full-length novel, she finally achieved it just before her 40th birthday. Saving Missy has sold in 17 countries, and was one of the top ten bestselling debuts of 2020. Now Beth is a part-time writer, and full-time harassed mother, dog-walker and caterer.
Piers Torday*
Piers Torday began his career in theatre and then television as a producer and writer. His bestselling first book for children, The Last Wild, was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children’s Book Award and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. His second book, The Dark Wild, won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The third book in the trilogy, The Wild Beyond, was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. There May Be A Castle was published in 2016 and was a Times Children’s Book of the Year. His most recent book, The Frozen Sea, was published in 2019, and Piers recently announced a prequel to The Last Wild – The Wild Before - which will be published in August 2021. The son of the late Paul Torday (author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) Piers completed his father’s final unfinished novel, The Death of an Owl, which was published in 2016.
*Please note that Piers was unfortunately unable to attend the session and Marianne Levy kindly stepped in.
Kathy Slack
Kathy Slack is a cook, veg grower and writer who previously worked in advertising agencies in London for more than a decade, before escaping to the Oxfordshire countryside and retraining. After learning the ropes working at Daylesford Organic Farm she became a full-time writer and recipe developer, hosting supper clubs and cookery demonstrations, all with harvests from her veg patch, as well as food styling and photography for various brands and publications. She has a column in Borough Market's award-winning magazine and a regular slot on BBC Radio Oxford. Kathy has won the Young British Foodie award and the Soil Association's Best Blog award. She lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, her spaniel and her vegetables, and her first book, From the Veg Patch, is published by Ebury Press in June this year.
Marianne Levy
Marianne is the author of five children's books, published with Egmont and Macmillan. Her work has appeared in The Independent, The Guardian and The Financial Times. She writes features, book and television reviews for the i newspaper, where she is the lead children's book critic. She lives in London.