Meet the 2025 authors
Alexia Casale
After an MA in Social & Political Sciences (Psychology major) then MPhil in Educational Psychology & Technology, both at Cambridge University, she took a break from academia and moved to New York. There she worked on a Tony-award-winning Broadway show before returning to England to complete a PhD and teaching qualification (full PGCHEP). In between, she worked as a West End script-critic, box-office manager for a music festival and executive editor of a human rights journal. She now works as Director of YA Shot: a young adult and children’s literature festival with a large outreach programme providing free author visits to libraries paired with disadvantaged local schools.
She’s not sure which side of the family her dyslexia comes from, but is resigned to the fact that madness runs in both. She loves cats, collects glass animals and interesting knives, and has always wanted a dragon.
Her debut novel, The Bone Dragon, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and the Jugendliteraturpreis, and long-listed for the Branford Boase Award. It was also a Book of the Year for the Financial Times and Independent.
Clare Furniss
I grew up in London and moved to the Birmingham suburbs in my teens. I always loved writing, and as a child I wrote stories and poems in my spare time, but it never occurred to me that I could do it for a living.
I worked as a waitress, a shop assistant, and a general dogsbody at the Shakespeare Centre Library in Stratford-upon-Avon (where the biggest perk of the job was lots of free theatre tickets) before studying at Cambridge University and then at Aberdeen University where I did a Masters in Celtic literature.
I went on to work in media relations for the homelessness charity Shelter and spent several years as a press officer for then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. This involved a lot of writing – press releases, articles, briefing papers – but it wasn’t until I took a career break to have my children that I plucked up the courage to do what I’d always really wanted to do and attempt to write a book. I did an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University, and wrote The Year of The Rat as my MA manuscript.
Nevin Holness is a London-based writer with a degree in Fashion Journalism from London College of Fashion. In 2018 she was selected as a finalist in Penguin’s WriteNow mentorship programme.
Nevin writes stories that explore magic within the Jamaican diaspora. She’s passionate about creating complex and fantastical narratives that young Black readers can see themselves reflected in.
When she’s not writing, Nevin spends most of her time listening to Beyoncé.
Yes, she’s a Capricorn.
https://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/nevin-holness
Tess James-Mackey
After growing up in rural Shropshire, Tess set out to explore the world and find her place in it. She quickly rushed straight back to Shrewsbury when she realised she’d been where she belonged from the start. She now lives in a quiet suburb with a noisy partner and daughter, two extremely noisy cats, and a less noisy tortoise.
When she’s not allowing her mind to wander to dark and twisty places, she pursues more wholesome activities, like growing mediocre vegetables in her garden, camping with her daughter, and even riding the odd horse.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22896293.Tess_James_Mackey
S.J. Wills
I grew up in Chelmsford, Essex, where my parents let me choose any books I wanted from the library. I have worked as a freelance copyeditor since 2003, alongside rediscovering my childhood love: writing my own stories. I live in Kent with my writer husband, two sons, and a large, bouncing poodle.
