- Annahita de la Mare, Author -
Annahita de la Mare's glasses are testament to a childhood spent reading at night by torchlight under the blanket. As an adult, she’s still up reading after bedtime, just without the torch.
Annahita grew up in an Iranian-Welsh household in England but now lives in Switzerland with her husband and two daughters. The whole family love the great outdoors, and are often to be found grilling lunch over an open fire in the mountains or splashing around in the beautiful lakes and rivers. With a six and an eight year old, neither activity is as tranquil as it sounds.
Frustrated at not being able to find plentiful inspiring and relatable female characters of colour in picture books for her own children, she decided to be as brave as the girls in her stories, and start an adventure of her own. The Start of Something Big was her first book.
- Jennifer Kirkham, Illustrator -
Jennifer Kirkham is a British freelance Illustrator and graduate of the Glasgow School of Art. She credits her love of drawing to the portion of her childhood spent in East Africa, where the local wildlife provided endless inspiration and artistic challenges.
Now based in the North East of England, Jennifer shares a studio with her cat Heath and dog Scout. She works with a mixture of digital and traditional tools, and gets through an awful lot of podcasts.
- lemady rochard, Illustrator -
Lemady is a multi-talented freelance Illustrator, originally from the UK, now living in Switzerland. Lemady works in a mixed-media collage approach, using hand-drawn/painted elements in graphite, ink and acrylic combined with digital collage. She is well known for her Storycraft Studio in Rüschlikon near Zürich, where children get to explore their creative sides in brilliantly planned projects using as much recycled material as possible. As a result, Lemady is rarely to be seen without a good sprinkling of glitter and a few splatters of paint.
Annahita had been hounding Lemady for years to illustrate one of her stories, and finally convinced her over a boozy Sunday lunch in 2019. The Little Mermaid's Son is their first book together.