Swapna Haddow trained as a doctor, but after discovering she didn't like blood, decided on a career change and wrote her first book Dave Pigeon: How to Deal With Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers, which won the Greenhouse Funny Prize. Dave Pigeon was also the winner of the North Somerset Teachers' Book Award, Read Aloud category 2016, winner of Surrey Libraries' Children's Book Award 2017, winner of the Fantastic Book Awards 2018 and selected as part of the Tom Fletcher Book Club 2, in association with WHSmith. Dave Pigeon was also shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Awards 2016, the Leicester Libraries Our Best Book Award 2017 and the Sheffield Children's Book Award 2017. The second book in the series, Dave Pigeon (Nuggets!), was shortlisted for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Crystal Kite Award 2018 and the third book in the series, Dave Pigeon (Racer!), was shortlisted for the Alligator's Mouth Award 2019.
Swapna now lives in New Zealand with her husband, their son and their dog. You can usually find Swapna writing, reading or eating Jaffa Cakes. Sometimes you might find her doing all three at the same time.
Dapo Adeola is a young illustrator and character designer who is new to the picture book world. His first book, Look Up was written by Nathan Bryon and published by Puffin in June 2019 to great acclaim. Born in Britain and of Nigerian heritage, Dapo's work tends to revolve around creating characters and imagery that challenge gender norms and equality politics in a fun and upbeat manner.
An avid believer in the importance of equal representation in the creative arts, Dapo runs illustration and character design based workshops with children in and out of schools to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to inner city children of various ethnicities. Dapo lives in London.
