Hiawyn Oram

author of Just Dog (illustrated by Lisa Flather),

Hiawyn Oram is a very successful author of children's books who has a large following both in Britain and abroad. Born in South Africa, Hiawyn studied English and Drama there before moving to Britain to begin a career as an advertising copywriter.

Hiawyn has also been a cook for a film production company before embarking upon a career as an author.

Many of Hiawyn's acclaimed children's books have been illustrated by highly successful illustrators, such as Satoshi Kitamura and Tony Ross. Angry Arthur (Andersen Press) won the Japanese Picture Book Award in 1988.

For Orchard Books, Hiawyn has written both younger fiction and picture books. She has written two young collections, Counting Leopard's Spots, a delightful collection of animal stories from Africa (published in paperback in 2000) and Not-So-Grizzly Bear Stories, both illustrated by Tim Warnes.

As well as these two collections, Hiawyn has written the Animal Heroes series (a total of 8 books). She is also the author of Beetle and Bug and Mona the Vampire. Mona the Vampire became a TV series on BBC TV and Orchard published 4 new Mona titles to coincide with this, as well as re-jacketing the original Mona the Vampire's Diary.

The ever popular Just Dog (winner of the Experian Big 3 Children's Book Prize) was Hiawyn's third picture book. Illustrated by Lisa Flather, Just Dog tells the story of how "Dog" got his name. Her previous picture books were the highly-succesful Billy and the Brilliant Babysitter illlustrated by Sonia Holleyman and Flip Flop's First Swim illustrated by Patrick Yee. Autumn 1999 saw the publication of Hiawyn's latest picture book, Sabby and the Dream Monster.

Hiawyn has lived in Wandsworth, South London, for some years now and has two grown-up sons.