Nicholas Oldland is the creative director and one of the owners of an apparel company called Hatley. He has been illustrating prints for children’s pajamas for the past 10 years.#Nicholas always wanted to write a book that you could take to bed with a pair of Hatley pajamas, but he quickly discovered writing a book was a lot harder than he imagined. Instead, he found easier things to do, like going for lunch, playing with his kids and napping.#This all changed one sleepless night when Nicholas blindly scratched out the story for Big Bear Hug. In the morning when he looked at his sketchpad he knew he had something. He spent the next few weeks sketching frantically and when it was all done Nicholas dropped it off at Kids Can Press. This was his first book so he did not know what to expect, but luckily they liked it.#Nicholas had such a good time creating Big Bear Hug that he has started working on a second book. This time he is going to explore the personality of one of Bear’s best friends, Moose.#Unlike most other illustrators and authors, Nicholas’s work can be found on pajamas, and the best place to have a look is on his company’s website: www.hatley.com

Cybèle Young is an internationally renowned artist, represented by galleries in New York, London, Vancouver and Calgary. She studied sculpture and printmaking at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and has since been awarded over twenty arts grants and awards, and has received considerable notice in such publications as Art in America, Canadian Art magazine, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Now magazine, Fiberarts, Maclean’s, Elle and Toronto Life. Her work resides in major collections around the world.#Young creates miniature sculptural works from fine Japanese papers. Her inspiration comes from fleeting day-to-day experiences while her creativity flourishes in the mundane, where small observations become fantastic. The results are works that emerge from familiar motifs abstracted by passing impressions. Young compiles these sculptures to create communities that interact and form new relationships — much like how the small, seemingly insignificant, moments in our everyday lives can come together to create unexpected outcomes.#Her art practice and family life have also inspired the creation of several children’s books. She was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Illustration in 2000, and has written and illustrated two titles (Ten Birds, Kids Can Press, and A Few Blocks, Groundwood Books). #Cybèle recently received a Canada Council artist’s residency grant to live and create new work in Paris for four months in summer 2011.

Marianne was born in Montreal, Quebec. As an only child, she would follow her parents on their outings and keep busy drawing for hours. While growing up, she drew and invented stories for her young cousins.#In 2006, she published her first book, The Sea, after studying graphic design at l’Université du Québec à Montréal. She has since been writing and illustrating children’s books with publishers from many countries. Marianne’s books include In Front of My House, which was nominated for the 2011 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, The Bus Ride, which received the 2015 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, Mr. Postmouse’s Rounds, which won the 2016 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award for Children’s Picture Books and Up the Mountain Path (original French version) which won the 2018 Governor General’s Award, the 2018 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the 2018 Harry Black Award.#Marianne lives in Montreal, where she shares her time between her work and her family, with great delight.

Willow Dawson, originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, is an illustrator and writer working out of Toronto, Canada. Her stand-alone illustrations are rendered in ink and acrylic on cardboard. She also works sequentially in ink as a comics artist. Some of Dawson’s clients include Kids Can Press, Owl Magazine, Shameless Magazine, Feathertale Review, Filmblanc, Sumach Press, Kiss Machine, Locust Mount Records, Tightrope Books and Omni TV.#Dawson most recently illustrated No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure (written by Susan Hughes), an 80-page graphic novel. Recent projects include Ella and Squid’s Top 5 March Break Favourites (Owl Magazine), The Innumerable Obsessions of Purl McGee (self-published) and the four-part Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate graphic novella (written by Emily Pohl-Weary, Kiss Machine). Dawson is presently working on 100 Mile House, a series of comic-style memoirs, which will be featured on-line this summer at Top Shelf 2.0. Her books have received funding from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. #Dawson is a member of the Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications, JacketFlap and Illustration Mundo. She attends book and comic book festivals across North America, participates on panel discussions, gives artist talks and teaches. In her spare time she sews, grows plants, collects dead bugs, eats spaghetti and doesn’t comb her hair. Willow also plays saw, keys and sings in the band Little Brown Bat.

Tania lives in Toronto with her husband and son, Finch. She graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1997 and has been a freelance illustrator for 15 years. Tania has done work for clients such as Today’s Parent magazine, Chirp, Holt Renfrew, The National Post and many others. She is currently a stay-at-home mum, and after bedtime, she works on her drawings. In another life, Tania might like to be a fabric designer, a librarian or even a small-town cafe owner. She sometimes has trouble saying things out loud, just like Willow. She likes coffee and tea, walks, reading books, daydreaming and baking things.