Shane Hegarty (Author) Shane Hegarty was a journalist and editor of the Irish Times , and before that worked in radio and the music business. Now a full time writer, he is the author of the bestselling middle-grade series, Darkmouth - which is currently being developed into a big screen animation by Oscar-nominated director Douglas Sweetland and Moana Head of Story, Dave Pimentel. Darkmouth was nominated for the Waterstones Prize. Boot is his first series for younger readers. He lives near Dublin with his wife and a brutally honest young readers focus group - otherwise known as his four children. Ben Mantle (Illustrator) Ben was born in Leamington Spa in 1980, and developed a very early interest in things artistic, designing programme covers for school productions and even coming first in his local library colouring-in competition. From there he went on to study animation at Surrey Institute of Art & Design, graduating in 2003. He moved to Brighton to work as 'Head of Animation' in a media company, focusing on Character and Background design.

Since 2008, Ben has been working as a Children's Book Illustrator from his shared studio in Brighton and he also produces screen prints and digital artwork to exhibit.