Natascha Biebow
Alison Branagan
Tim Bowler
Barry Cunningham
Lindsey Gardiner
Candy Gourlay
Miriam Halahmy
Layn Marlow
Geraldine McCaughrean
Sarah McIntyre
Anne Marie Perks
Lee Weatherly
Chris Wormell
Editors Panel
Jonathan Lambert/Templar
Lizzie Spratt/Walker Books
Annie Eaton/Random House
Art Directors/Editors Panel
Jo Spooner/Macmillan
Val Braithwaite/Bloomsbury
Ben Sharpe/DFC Comics
November 22 to 23, 2008
West Downs Campus
University of Winchester SO22 4NR
Barry Cunningham's publishing career began in marketing children's books, traveling the UK with authors and learning the difference between what children like and what they're told to like. He has worked with all the great names from Roald Dahl to J. K. Rowling: it was as founder publisher of Bloomsbury Children's Books that he discovered Harry Potter. He is currently Publisher and M.D. of Chicken House, which he founded in 2000 with his Deputy M.D., Rachel Hickman.
About Chicken House. The Chicken House is a plucky, highly individual, children's book publishing company with an enthusiasm for finding new writers, artists and ideas. Chicken House books have found worldwide popularity with children, parents, teachers and librarians everywhere.
In a short space of time, the Chicken House has demonstrated that a small, creative team can make an impact on an international scale. Chicken House has had worldwide success with German writer, Cornelia Funke, with sales of over 6,000,000 copies in English worldwide and four New York Times children's bestsellers. Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke is the longest-running No. 1 New York Times children's bestseller since Harry Potter, with more than 900,000 copies in print in the USA.
Chicken House successes: Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke,
The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill, Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks
Closer to home, bookseller and former car-upholsterer, Stuart Hill, shot to fame with his debut novel, The Cry of the Icemark, one of the first children's bestsellers of 2005 and the winner of the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize. Other prize-winning Chicken House authors include Katherine Roberts, who won the very first Branford Boase Award in 2000 - awarded for an outstanding debut novel for young people - followed by Kevin Brooks in 2003. Kevin Brooks was the first ever debut author to be short-listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2002, and has since been short-listed twice for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. In 2004 and again in 2005, Chicken House was short-listed for Small Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Chicken House is especially proud of its association with Scholastic Inc. in the United States and Canada, having published in partnership with the company for the last five years. This highly successful relationship was sealed in April 2005 by Scholastic's acquisition of the Chicken House.
The Chicken House team remains based in Somerset in the UK, and includes Esther Waller, Publishing Manager, and Imogen Cooper, Fiction Editor. Chicken House works closely with skilled freelance staff, including: Editorial and Rights, Elinor Bagenal, Art Director, Ian Butterworth and Publicist, Mary Byrne.
In the United Kingdom Chicken House books are sold and distributed by Scholastic UK.