Lollies 2023: Illustrator of the Year Shortlist Q&A

Liz Pichon

Liz Pichon is best known as the illustrator and author of the Number One bestselling Tom Gates books which have won many awards including the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, a Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and a Blue Peter Award.

Liz started her career in the music industry as an album cover designer before becoming illustrator and author of many picture books, Tom Gates, and middle-grade adventure, Shoe Wars.

As well as being a celebrated illustrator, Liz writes the songs and stars in the award-winning The Brilliant World of Tom Gates TV series which features animation, makes and doodles. She also hosts ‘Tremendous Tales with Liz Pichon’ podcast where she interviews top children’s illustrators and authors for a family audience.

Liz is dyslexic and talks about how comics got her were her gateway into reading. Now her own highly-illustrated books are widely credited with getting children reading – even struggling readers. Liz lives in Brighton.

Dapo Adeola

Dapo Adeola is an award-winning illustrator and designer who creates characters and images that challenge expectations around race and gender in a fun and upbeat way. He is the co-creator and illustrator of bestselling picture book Look Up! – winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the number 1 debut picture book of 2019.

London born and bred but of Nigerian heritage, when he’s not busy cooking up new characters and adventures you can find Dapo running illustration and character design workshops with children or organising events to help highlight the possibilities of a career in illustration to underrepresented members of the Black diaspora.

Steven Lenton

Steven hails from Cheshire and now works from his studio in Brighton, creating an array of charming characters for his books.

Best known for illustrating Shifty McGifty series, written by Tracey Corderoy, he has illustrated many lovely books and wrote his first picture book with Nosy Crow, Princess Daisy and the Dragon and the Nincompoop Knights.

Steven also loves to visit schools, festivals and bookshops, encouraging and inspiring his audience to draw, giggle and create! He is also a children’s book blogger – just search for his name on YouTube. More information about him and his work can be found at stevenlenton.com.

Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet

Sue Hendra grew up in Wimbledon and has always loved making up stories and drawing pictures. Her favourite book as a child was Mr Silly. She graduated from Brighton University in 1994 and has been creating picture books ever since. In 2006 she met Paul Linnet and could instantly see that she’d met a fellow nitwit who liked talking nonsense. They went on to create many bestselling books together, working in a small room in their house in Brighton. Sue loves swimming, and can swim up and down for a very long time. Her favourite book is still Mr Silly.

Paul Linnet was born in Brighton and grew up in the Midlands, reading Tintin and playing classic 80s video games, before becoming obsessed with scribbling, writing, guitars and motorcycles. He studied Graphic Design at Derby University, and later moved back to Brighton where he met Sue Hendra. They made up a story about a fish with fingers and then a slug with a doughnut for a shell, and now no one can stop them from writing more and more frankly ridiculous books. They live in Brighton – and Paul still loves scribbling, writing, guitars and motorcycles.