Jeanne Willis

Jeanne Willis wrote her first book when she was five - a slim volume about cats written in pencil and stitched together with a painfully blunt needle so that it looked like a 'real' book. After that, there was no turning back. Having been fired frm her Saturday job - selling cowboy boots on the Kings Road - for chewing gum, and after a brief career as a reptile vet's assistant, she worked as a copywriter and had her first picture book published at the age of 21 (which she wrote whilst pretending to be busy creating adverts for cognac).

She has since written over 300 books and has won several awards, which are arranged in the attic where she works, along with her collection of caterpillars, pink-toed tarantula skins and live locusts. Jeanne has a keen interest in Natural History and has lost count of the number of species featured in her books, including everything from slugs to sloths. She is currently into corvids - especially Nosy Crows.