Marilyn Taylor was born and educated in England, and has an economics degree from London University. She was a school librarian in a Dublin secondary school for 16 years and a college librarian.

Her first novels for young adults were the Jackie and Kev trilogy, Could This Be Love, I Wondered? (1994),  Could I Love a Stranger? and Call Yourself a Friend?.

Faraway Home was a new departure for Marilyn, having a strong historical basis and being set in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. It won the prestigious Bisto Book of the Year Award and was followed by 17 Martin Street, set in Dublin during The Emergency (as the Second World War was knows in Ireland). Both have been hugely popular with schools throughout Ireland and beyond.

Loreto Todd is Professor of English at the University of Ulster, Coleraine. Born in Northern Ireland, she attended Queen's University, Belfast where her classmates included poet Seamus Heaney and writer Seamus Deane. She worked in England for many years, and was director of the programme of World English Research at the University of Leeds, England.

She has travelled extensively and lectured in Africa, America (North and South), Asia (India and Singapore), Australia (Brisbane and Sydney), the Caribbean and the Pacific (Hawaii, Solomans, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea). She has written 30 books, over 80 articles and chapters in books; over 100 reviews, short papers and has edited several journals.

During her travels, she has amassed a collection of texts, as well as audio and audio-visual recordings, from around the world. These total in excess of 12 million words and include: Conversations; Descriptions of language choice and use; Oral and written literature. She is currently working on this archive material and translating the Pidgin and Creole texts.

Patrick Touher trained as a Baker Confectioner whilst in Artane Industrial School and worked as such upon leaving the school at age sixteen. Patrick travelled extensively from the sixties through to the early seventies. In 1972 he married his wife Pauline and they had three children together.

Carol Ann Treacy is an Irish children’s author, illustrator and graphic designer. She lives in Kilkenny in a very messy house with her husband, two children and a bunch of wild cats; She loves to travel and sometimes wishes she could fly. She thinks geese are great. Honk!