Authors & Illustrators

Florian Pigé is a graduate of the Émile Cohl School of Fine Arts in Lyon. During his time there, he discovered his passion for children’s literature. In his work, he focuses on the simplicity of form and explores different materials. In 2019, the original “Si petit” was given to all children born or adopted there…

Matze Döbele was born in 1975 in the Black Forest and knows about roots, mushrooms and Pine cones therefore look great. His illustrations were awarded and exhibited internationally. He lives and works as a freelance Illustrator with his family in Hamburg. www.derdoebele.de

Stefanie Kolb has been passionate about drawing since she was a child, preferably tousled animals and all kinds of people. After studying art in Mainz and training as a computer graphic artist in Berlin, she went on to illustrate for various companies, publishing houses, advertising and film agencies. Today she lives as a freelance illustrator…

Anja Günther was born in Zwickau in 1982 and studied architecture in the Vogtland. Here she learned and discovered not only the design of buildings, but also her passion for graphic design and illustration. And so she has been working on various creative projects for many years. Through her daughters, she discovered her love for…

Henrike Lippa-Wagenmann was born in 1983. She’s an enthusiastic musician and lives and works with her husband, dog and turtle on the edge of the forest in Gütersloh. She discovered her love for music as a child and since 2005 she has been running the integrative art and music school in her hometown. Besides making…

The illustrator Britta Bolle loves to create new worlds and prefers not to look at the world through adult eyes. After studying illustration in the Netherlands, she returned to Germany in 2013, where she now lives and works. She has found her professional passion by specializing in illustrations for children. brittabolle.de  

Anna Aparicio Català (Barcelona, 1991) has a degree in Fine Arts (majoring in Drawing) from the University of Barcelona and studied illustration at the Escola de la Dona de Barcelona (Women’s School of Barcelona). She combines her work as an illustrator with that of an assistant in the children’s section of a public library. She…

Hanna Jansen is an author with commitment and passion. Fourteen children from all over the world, mostly from Africa, found a new home with her and her husband. She is particularly interested in the question of how people from very different origins and cultures can live together and enrich one another. After most of her children…

Andrea Karimé, born in 1963, grew up in Kassel between the German and Lebanese language and culture. She studied art and Music education, trained in creative writing and as a storyteller and worked as a teacher. She was awarded the Austrian Children’s Literature Award for Tee mit Onkel Mustafa (Picus, 2011), and the Children’s Book…

Verena Hochleitner was born in Vienna in 1969 and studied Graphic Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. For many years she has enjoyed living in Vienna with a view of the flak tower in Augarten. She is a freelance graphic artist, illustrator and author, mainly illustrating children’s books and designing books.

Nicolas Gorny actually wanted to become a superhero as a child. But since neither an intergalactic magic ring nor the bite of a radioactive spider gave him the desired powers, he had to follow a different destiny. Today he writes and illustrates children’s books, collects comic books and is known as the “world’s worst dancer”….

Frank Maria Reifenberg is a trained bookseller and has been writing books for children and young people since 2003. He has been awarded the Leipzig Reading Compass several times and has been nominated for the German-French Children’s Book Prize and the Catholic Children’s Book Prize.  His books have been translated into many languages. frankmariareifenberg.wordpress.com

Sonja Kurzbach was born in East Frisia in 1983 and moved to Bremen after graduating from high school, where she trained and worked as a media designer. In 2013, she won a scholarship to AID Berlin through a competition, which eventually drew her to the capital. Away from the drawing table, she loves karate, screen…

Michael Roher, * 1980 in Lower Austria, trained as a social worker in Vienna. His love for the circus, for drawing and design as well as for working with people determines his activities and projects. He has received numerous awards for his children’s books, including: Dixi Children’s Literature Prize, Romulus Candea Prize, Illustration Prize of…

Julia Nüsch, born in Hamburg in 1979, studied Illustration at the HAW Hamburg from 2002 to 2009 and simultaneously worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for an agency in Hamburg. Since 2009, she works freelance for agencies, publishing companies and magazines. Julia Nüsch lives in Hamburg. She already illustrated other titles of the Kindermann…

Nicole Mahne was born in Verl, East Westphalia in 1972. She had to struggle through a difficult time at school before she was finally allowed to study German, linguistics and education. She has been working as a freelance editor and copywriter since 2006. She lives in Bielefeld with her husband, daughter, dog and cat. She…

The artist and illustrator Katharina Naimer was born in 1979 in Lower Bavaria. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Until 2017 she headed the children’s atelier PABLiTO and mainly worked on art and creative projects with children before turning back to her own artistic work. Her work focuses on fairytale and…

Tine Schulz (* 1981), works as an illustrator and artist for publishers, magazines and organizations – preferably for children and everything that is fair, social, sustainable and makes the world a little better. After training as a media designer, a few years as a graphic designer and studying communication design, she now works as a…

Dita Zipfel, born 1981, is a writer of illustrated childrens books, theater plays, screenplays and novels. She was just awarded with the German Youth Literature Award 2020 and the Korbinian – Paul Maar-Preis 2020. www.ditazipfel.de    

Finn-Ole Heinrich, born in 1982, is one of the most acclaimed young german authors. His short story collection die taschen voll wasser was published by mairisch Verlag in 2005, picking up enthusiastic reactions from readers and critics, as did his following books Räuberhände and Gestern war auch schon ein Tag. His books for children (published at Hanser Verlag and later…

Katja Spitzer studied art history and history in Halle and illustration in Leipzig and in Luzern (Switzerland). Today she lives in Berlin, creating illustrations for books and teaching children and adults how to draw. www.katja-spitzer.de

Saša Stanišić was born 1978 in Višegrad (Yugoslawia) geboren; since 1992 he is living in Germany. His short stories and novels (Vor dem Fest, Herkunft a.o.) have been translated into more than 30 languages and he received countless awards, most notably the German Book Prize in 2019. Currently, he lives in Hamburg – and so does his son Nikolai,…

Gitte Spee was born in Indonesia in 1950. When she was eleven years old, she moved to the Netherlands with her family. She studied illustration in Amsterdam. Since then she has illustrated numerous books for international publishers, in Germany she is particularly known for the pictures for Dagmar Chidolue’s Millie books.

Bernadette Vermeij was born in Woerden in the Netherlands in 1979. She works for the Dutch foundation for children who are deaf or hard of hearing in Amsterdam. She is particularly interested in the promotion of language development in children. Let’s Build a Hut! is her first children’s book.

Thomas Kriebaum was born in Vienna in 1968. He lives and works in Vienna. He creates comical drawings for the Augustin or AutoTouring, among others. He received the Outstanding Artist Award 2010 in the category “Caricature and Comic”. https://www.derkriebaum.at/

Rosemarie Eichinger came to Vienna to study history and still lives in Vienna today with her husband, daughter and snail. She works as a freelance writer and has received various awards and grants for her work.

Katrine Clante, born in Copenhagen in 1973, grew up in the Danish countryside. She studied visual communication at the Danish School of Design and has been working as an illustrator since 2003. She has received various prestigious awards. www.katrineclante.dk  

Katrin Stangl, born in 1977, studied at the Leipzig School of Graphics and Book Art. She uses different techniques to illustrate her own and other authors’ texts. She has been a member of the artist group SPRING since 2009. She teaches drawing at the FH Aachen and gives workshops in Germany and abroad. Her works…

Jennifer Bouron is a Fench illustrator. After studying fashion, Jennifer worked in children‘s fashion in the Netherlands for three years. She subsequently decided to become a freelance illustrator and print designer. Jennifer has been working with clothing brands such as Lazzari and Lucy & Yak, but also for magazines (Flow, Frankie) and stationery (Lagorn Design)…

Lisa Maria Wagner was born in 1986. Studied psychology in Graz. Drawings for the theater play “No distance left to run”, (theater acme- / dramagraz), Graz 2013. In 2014 she founded the design label lisalottchen and participated in the design festival assembly from 2011 to 2014. Lisa is currently busy with colorful blackmail letters for…

Born in 1966, Anna Schindler grew up in a house full of books in the Odenwald with four siblings. She was deeply impressed by personal encounters with Astrid Lindgren and Michael Ende. At the age of 14, she moved to Switzerland. She wrote stories, a play and read. Since 2015, she has immersed herself as…

Katrin Dageför was born in 1966. Following her A-levels, she lived in Montreal for a year, then went to Krefeld to study Graphic Design. Once she had obtained her diploma, she looked for a job in Hamburg, where she worked as Art Director in various advertising agencies. After her parental leave she dedicated herself entirely…

Klaus Ensikat, born in 1937, is one of Germany’s most brilliant illustrators. He won numerous awards for his works. In 1996, he was honoured for all his contributions to children’s literature with the most important internationalmark of honour: the Hans-Christian-Andersen Award. Between 1995 and 2003, Klaus Ensikat held a professorship at the Hamburg Academy of…

Christine Schulz-Reiss (born in 1956) is an author of Children’s books as well as a freelance journalist. She studied history, politics and Communication Sciences in Erlangen and Munich. Afterwards she worked as a political editor and journalist, until she became self-employed in 1991. She is known for her popular series of Children’s Non-fiction books »Who…

Raffaela Schöbitz is a freelance illustrator and author from Vienna. Her graphic novel The Blissful Islands appeared as part of the five-volume debut novel People are Sitting at the Edge of the World Laughing (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2018). In addition to graphic novels, she mainly illustrates children’s books, but also record covers or illustrations for magazines….

Juan Feliu Sastre (Mallorca, 1971), a versatile artist, studied Engineering, Technical Architecture as well as Geography and History. Founder of the Mallorcan band Vacabou (2002-2014), in which he played an instrument and was a composer, he has collaborated with writers such as Agustín Fernández Mallo, with whom he created the group Frida Laponia, or Bernardí…

Lisa Biggi was born in Italy in 1975. After completing her studies in Philosophy, Lisa Biggi discovered the pleasure of writing and has experimented with it in many ways. She participates in poetry contests and contributes to literary magazines. She has published a book of tragicomic stories and several children’s albums. Lisa writes at night…

Paloma Corral (born in Madrid, 1982) has a degree in Fine Arts. Since 2011 she has been working for different publishers, design studios and institutions. She is currently combining illustration work with teaching at IED Madrid. She received the Lazarillo Illustration Prize in 2018 and was selected, among others, at the Bologna Book Fair (Italy)…

Olivia Huth loves rainy days. Her first wellington boots, or rather those, that she can remember, were red with white dots. From an early age she was a master in dam construction; serious competition for the beavers. Now she has children of her own and very much enjoys romping around in the rain with her…

Christine Ziegler was born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1971. After her A-levels she studied Restoration Sciences and worked in various museums. She is fascinated by the field of tension between the past and the future. Today she writes and lives near Munich with her family, which includes an excessive computer gamer, and two chatty cats near…

Grit Poppe was born in Boltenhagen on the Baltic Sea in 1964.  She studied at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig and from 1989 to 1992, she was the regional general secretary for ”Democracy Now“. Today, she writes books for children, adolescents, and adults. Her young-adult novel Weggesperrt (Locked Away) is read in schools…

Graduated from the Superior School of Epinal Art [l’École Supérieure d’Art d’Épinal], Margaux began to actively illustrate in 2018 in Besançon. She has always dreamed of wonderful tender worlds. Margaux is very interested in the microcosm of plants, a refuge that constantly inspires her. Born at the tip of her brush, er world of soft…

Katja Gehrmann, born in 1968, studied Illustration in Mexico, Spain and Hamburg. She works for magazines and various publishing houses. Besuch beim Hasen (Visiting Rabbit), written by Christian Oster and illustrated by Katja was nominated for the German Children’s Literature Award in 2014. Stadtbär (Town Bear) won the Children’s Book Prize NRW 2019 and was…

David Böhm(* 1982) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Apart from his book publications, his work has been presented in art galleries in New York, Ber-lin, Kiev and other cities. He is the co-author and illustrator of Kopf im Kopf, which was nominated for the German Children‘s Literature Award 2017.

Jonathan King’s comics have featured online and in anthologies. King is a prominent filmmaker whose debut feature Black Sheep remains one of New Zealand’s biggest-selling feature films. Its international awards include the Audience Award at the Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival, the Silver Raven at the Brussels Fantastic Film Festival and the Sir Julius Vogel Award…

Rocío Araya was born Bilbao, Spain in 1982. She studied Fine Arts in the University of País Vasco, Spain, and finished her Master in Education in 2010.Her training as an illustrator is has been largely self-taught and also tutored by illustrators such as Violeta Lópiz, Roger Olmos, and Rotraut Susan Berner. She has published a few illustrated…

Megan Herbert is an Australian-born, Amsterdam-based writer and illustrator whose career as a television and film writer, journalist, product designer, editorial cartoonist, and children’s book creator has spanned twenty years. www.meganherbert.com  

David Elliot is one of New Zealand’s leading children’s book illustrators. He has won many awards including the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award and the Russell Clark Award for Illustration at the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults for Snark. Elliot has an international reputation, and has illustrated for…

Hunter, Eirlys (1952 –) is a London-born fiction writer for children and adults. She moved to Wellington in 1983, as ‘a refugee from Thatcher’s Britain’. In 1991, Hunter joined the Original Composition class at Victoria University, and in 1998 completed an MA in creative writing there. Her short stories have appeared in Landfall and Sport,…

Drawing always came natural to her, even as a child. Getting through school was harder – she spent many years struggling through. Finally, Ingrid ended up studying retail design at the Academy for Fine Arts in Lier. By then she was still drawing, and her pictures turned out remarkably well. One of her teachers saw…

Joy Cowley is one of New Zealand’s best-loved writers. Her awards include the Margaret Mahy Medal; the NZ Post Children’s Book Award 2006; the Roberta Long Medal, Alabama, USA; and the AW Reed Award for Contribution to New Zealand Literature. She is a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. https://www.joycowley.com/

Nadia Faichney is a freelance illustrator based in Hamburg. She is currently undertaking a Master in Illustration Design at the HAW University of Hamburg, at the faculty of Design and Illustration. She specialises in the illustration of children’s and non-fiction books and wants to make new rooms accessible through her analogue painting and her own…

Jens Soentgen was born in 1967, studied Chemistry, earned a doctorate in Philosophy and taught at universities in Germany and Brazil. He has been in charge of the Centre of Environmental Science at the University of Augsburg since 2002. Both of his books have been nominated for the German Youth Literature Award.

Jürg Schubiger, born 1936 in Zurich, did his first degree in German Studies, Psychology and Philosophy, and wrote his PhD thesis on Franz Kafka. He has worked in Zurich since 1980 as a writer and psychotherapist. Jürg Schubiger writes for both children and adults; in 1996 he was awarded the German Children’s Literature Prize for…

Béatrice Rodriguez was born in 1969 and lives in a little town in the French Department Nièvre. She studied Art in Strasbourg and today works as a freelance illustrator for many renowned publishing houses, e.g. Actes Sud Junior, Lito, Bayard, Milan and Nathan. Her picture book The Chicken Thief was a great success in Germany and other…

Isabel Pin was born in 1974 in Versailles, she studied illustration and painting in New York, Salzburg, Hamburg and Paris. Her work has been presented in exhibitions in Bologna and Paris. Among the awards that Isabel Pin’s books have won are: Austrian Children’s and Young Adult Book Award, First Prize of hte Institute Charles Perrault…

Christiane Pieper is a well known German illustrator for whom illustrating children’s books is a dream vocation. She has worked for some of Germany’s most prestigious publishing houses, and has illustrated over 40 books in all, receiving among other recognitions, the Troisdorf Bilderbuchpreis. She is particularly interested in capturing moods and movement in her pictures…

Eva Muggenthaler was born 1971 in Fürth, studied Illustration in Hamburg. Her picture books Der Schäfer Raul and Der weiße und der schwarze Bär were both nominated for the German Youth Literature Award.

Thomas M. Müller, born in 1966, studied at the HGB in Leipzig and at the School of Design in Lucerne. In 2005 he became a professor at his Alma Mater in Leipzig. Apart from illustrating books, he has also designed posters, cartoons and graphics. An artist of international renown, his works have been part of…

Tobias Krejtschi, born in 1980 in Dresden, studied Illustration in Hamburg. Still a student he won different illustration contests. Clever Mama Sambona, his first picture book, was nominated for the “Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis“ (German Youth Literature Award) and won the Troisdorf Picture Book Award. Illustrator’s own website

Ulf K. was born in 1969 in Oberhausen, Germany, right in the heart of the Ruhrgebiet. It was there, in the shadows of the blast furnaces, that he spent his childhood and adolescence, as well as studied graphic design at the University of Essen. In 1996, he was briefly pulled to Paris, but became so…

Werner Holzwarth was born in 1947. He holds a chair for Visual Communication at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. He is also a writer: his picture book The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it was None of his Business has been a worldwide success. It has been translated into 27 languages and sold more than…

Wolf Erlbruch was born in Wuppertal in 1948. He studied graphic design at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung in Essen. After graduating in 1974 he worked as a freelance illustrator in the advertising industry. Since the end of the 1980s Erlbruch has been writing and illustrating children’s books. In 1990 he was appointed a professor at…

Nadia Budde was born in Berlin in 1967. After completing secondary school she apprenticed as a retail display designer. She began studying graphic arts at the Berlin College of Art in Weissensee in 1992 and later studied at the Royal College of Art in London. She completed her degree in 2000 and since then has…

Aljoscha Blau was born in St. Petersburg in 1972 and studied illustration and graphic arts in Hamburg. He has had exhibitions in Paris, New York, Hamburg and Bologna and has illustrated numerous picture books. Two of his books were awarded the “Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis” and his book Rote Wangen (Aufbau Verlag) received the Bologna Ragazzi Award….

Rotraut Susanne Berner was born in Stuttgart in 1948. She studied graphic design at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. After completing her studies she worked in advertising, and has worked independently as a graphic designer and illustrator since 1977. She has very successfully illustrated many books, including such works as “Sonntagskind” by Gudrun Mebs…

Sonja loves painting pictures and telling stories. After studying and working some years as a graphic designer in her hometown Munich and Brussels, she decided to pack her suitcase and move to Barcelona to study Illustration at the “Llotja” Arts and Crafts School. Since then she lives between brushes and all kinds of wonderful tales, working…

Tobias Krejtschi, born in 1980 in Dresden, studied Illustration in Hamburg. Still a student he won various illustration contests. Clever Mama Sambona (Die schlaue Mama Sambona), his first picture book, was nominated for the German Children’s Literature Award and has also won the Troisdorf Picture Book Award. www.tobiaskrejtschi.de

Henning Wagenbreth, born in Eberswalde in 1962, is Professor for Illustration and Graphic Design and the University of Arts in Berlin. His picture book Moon and Morning Star was awarded the “Golden Letter” as part of the international competition “Most beautiful books from around the world” and the first prize as “The most beautiful German…