As 50% of the Two Steves, Steve Barlow has written over 160 books with Steve Skidmore since their first published work appeared in 1988. Born in Crewe, he was educated at Crewe Grammar School, Warwick University and Nottingham University before a varied career in teaching, acting, stage management and puppetry. He worked in a village school in Botswana for four years before returning to the UK and working with Steve Skidmore. The Two Steves tour extensively in the UK and overseas, and are frequent visitors to book festivals including Edinburgh and Hay. Their work for Hachette includes the highly popular I Hero and Crime Team choose-your-adventure books, and their I Horror series is raising the short hairs at the back of readers' necks with Orchard Books. Steve Skidmore writes with Steve Barlow. Together they are Britain's most popular comedy writing and performing double act for young people. Not surprisingly, they are known as The 2 Steves! The 2 Steves met over twenty years ago when they were both teaching in Nottingham. Since then they have written over 160 books together. They have also acted as series editors on numerous reading programmes for several major publishing houses. The 2 Steves are in great demand for author visits to schools, colleges and libraries across the world. They also undertake INSET events and make regular appearances at Literary Festivals. Steve Skidmore is shorter than Steve Barlow and less hairy. He was born in Birstall near Leicester in England. After managing to pass some exams at school, he went on to Nottingham University to supposedly read English, but spent most of his time playing sport and doing a variety of summer jobs including counting pastry pie lids (yes, really). He trained as a teacher of Drama, English and Film studies, before teaming up with Steve Barlow to become a full time author. He lives in Leicester and is a great rugby fan (he supports Leicester Tigers - Come on you Tiiiiigeeeers!). Pipi was born in Buenos Aires in the fabulous 60's and has always drawn. As a little child, he used to make plasticine figures too. He took them along to school as a hobby and at the age of 19 he found out he could earn a living by drawing. Pipi started designing humor magazines and was surrounded by the original drawings of many experimented artists. At the same time, he was encouraged to publish his own works. His curiosity lead him from then onwards. Pipi's drawings are usually funny and expressive. He develops cartoons and children's illustration in different artistic styles, and also 3D figures and puppets. He does some caricaturing as well, and he has done character design for animation, key animation and layouts. Pipi listens to music when he works. He loves Zappa, Bowie, Queen and he is fond of Progressive Rock.
