Peter Dickinson was born in 1927 in Zambia and moved to England in 1936. He attended Eton College in 1941 and remained until 1946. After completing his National Service (1946–48), he studied at King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951. For seventeen years, he worked as assistant editor, resident poet and reviewer for Punch magazine.

Dickinson's first two books, The Weathermonger and Skin Deep, were published in 1968. On completing sequels to both debut novels, Dickinson left Punch to be a full-time author the next year. He continued to write poetry for entertainment and occasionally on commission.
Dickinson published almost fifty books including crime fiction for adults, speculative and supernatural fiction for older children, and simpler children's books. One of his few non-fiction books was the collection Chance, Luck and Destiny (1975) won the second annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for children's non-fiction in 1977. The Weathermonger became the "Changes" trilogy comprises alongside the books Heartsease and The Devil's Children (1968 to 1970). It was adapted in 1975 as a BBC TV series, The Changes.

Dickinson won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger award for Skin Deep in 1968 and A Pride of Heroes in 1969. He won the 1977 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Blue Hawk, and both the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Tulku (1979). He won the Carnegie Medal again the following year for City of Gold. In 1982, Dickinson was named in the International Board of Books for Young People Honor List for Tulku, and The Iron Lion was selected one of New York Times Notable Books. Dickinson was the British nominee in 1988 for the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award, and one of five finalists for the award in 2000. Eva (1988) was a runner-up for both the Carnegie and the Horn Book Award. Dickinson won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association for The Seventh Raven (1981) and again in 2008 for Eva (1988). The Kin (1998) made the Whitbread Award shortlist.
Dickinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999 and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours. He was also chair of the Society of Authors.

Peter Dickinson died on 16 December 2015, his 88th birthday.

Josephine Dickinson is a British poet. She lives in a remote area of the Pennines, and raises a small flock of sheep. Her poetry collection The Voice was published by Flambard Press in 2003, and Night Journey was published in 2008.

Robert Burns Dick was born on 9 May 1868 in Stirling and died on 11 December 1954. He was an architect of substantial influence in the north-east of England, particularly in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. He moved to Newcastle as a child and was later articled to William Lister Newcombe, moving in 1888 to the office of Armstrong and Knowles, where he remained as assistant until 1892. He formed a partnership with Charles Thomas Marshall in 1895 which was dissolved in 1897, after which he entered into practice on his own and later into partnership with James Thoburn Cackett on 5 July 1899. His partnership with Cackett yielded buildings such as the distinctly Edwardian Students' Union building for what was to become Newcastle University, and Spanish City at Whitley Bay.

On 30 August 1923, Cackett and Burns Dick joined with Norman McKellar to form Cackett, Burns Dick and McKellar. The great office buildings around Carliol Square in Newcastle are Cackett, Burns Dick and Mackellar creations, as is the Church of the Divine Unity in Ellison Place. Amongst other distinguished buildings designed by Burns Dick were Berwick Police Station, opened in May 1901, the Laing Art Gallery in 1904 and the County Hall extension development, opened in October 1934. He also designed and built well over one hundred houses between 1890 and 1934, which include his home Millmount in Fenham, 1908, and later the famous Wedge in Moorside North, designed for his brother.

On 8 January 1906 Burns Dick was admitted as a fellow to the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was a good speaker and travelled and lectured all over the world. He used his roles as president of the Northern Architectural Association (1914-18) and as founder member of the Northumberland and Newcastle society in 1924 to improve the beauty, health and amenities of the city. He went to endless trouble preparing schemes for a 'green belt' for the city with new streets, and he also advocated alternative sites for the much debated problem of relocation of the Newcastle Town Hall. His 'great plan' for the redevelopment of Newcastle never came to fruition and only the Pilgrim Street development and the entrances to the Tyne Bridge ever got off the drawing board. This limited success, together with constantly living in the shadow of renowned architects Grainger, Dobson and Clayton, was clearly a source of frustration to him.

Born in Pakistan, Imtiaz Dharker grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow and eloped with a Hindu Indian to live in Bombay. She now lives between India, London and Wales. She is an accomplished artist and documentary film-maker, and has published four books with Bloodaxe, Postcards from god (including Purdah) (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The terrorist at my table (2006) and Leaving Fingerprints (2009), all including her own drawings.