Cressida Cowell

Cressida Cowell is a highly acclaimed English children's author, best known for her How to Train Your Dragon series. Cowell was born in London on April 15, 1966, to Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham. She spent her childhood holidays on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland, which inspired her to believe that dragons lived there. This fascination with dragons has stayed with her throughout her life and is a recurring theme in her work.

Cowell has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Oxford University, as well as degrees in graphic design and narrative illustration from St Martin's and Brighton. She enjoys illustrating her own work but also loves writing books for other people to illustrate. Cowell has written and illustrated eight books in the popular Hiccup series, which has been published in over 30 languages and adapted into a DreamWorks Animation feature film. She has won numerous prizes for her books, including the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2006, and is an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency.

In addition to the How to Train Your Dragon series, Cowell is also the author of the Emily Brown picture books, illustrated by Neal Layton. Her latest book, The Wizards of Once, is an international bestseller and has been signed by DreamWorks for a film adaptation. Cowell is a founder patron of the Children's Media Foundation and has won the Gold Award in the Nestle Children's Book Prize, the Hay Festival Medal for Fiction, and Philosophy Now' magazine's 2015 Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity. She currently lives in Hammersmith with her husband, three children, and a dog named Pigeon.