John Hughes was born in Belfast in 1962. He was educated at St Patrick's High School, Downpatrick, and studied English and Scholastic Philosophy at Queen's University, Belfast. After working for a film workshop in Belfast, he lived in New York for three years. He now lives and works in Belfast. His poems have been published in many magazines and anthologies, including Poets from the North of Ireland and The New Younger Irish Poets from Blackstaff Press.

Frieda Hughes was born in London in 1960, grew up in Devon, and after living in various parts of England and Australia now lives on the Welsh Borders. She wrote and painted from an early age, and for many years has been a painter and children’s writer. She has published four poetry collections with Bloodaxe, Wooroloo (1999), Stonepicker (2001), Waxworks (2002) and The Book of Mirrors (2009). She received a NESTA Award in 2002 to help her work on Forty-five, her portrait of her life in 45 poems and paintings, the poems from which were published by HarperCollins in the US in 2006.

Her first children’s book, Getting Rid of Edna, was published by Heinemann (UK) and Harper & Row (USA) in 1984. Four other titles followed from Simon and Schuster: The Meal a Mile Long (1989) and Waldorf and the Sleeping Granny (1990), which she also illustrated; followed byThe Thing in the Sink (1992) and Rent-a-Friend (1994). Her most recent titles are The Tall Story (MacDonald Young Books, 1997) and Three Scary Stories (HarperCollins, 2001).

Lecturer in music at Newcastle University, between 1952 and 1987.