Wendy Meddour

Wendy Meddour is a novelist, illustrator and academic. Her debut children’s book A Hen in the Wardrobe (Frances Lincoln, 2012) won the John C. Laurence award (for writing that improves relations between the races), was selected as one of the Guardian’s outstanding children’s books of the year, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Branford Boase book award. This was shortly followed by The Black Cat Detectives (Frances Lincoln, 2012) — which met with similar critical acclaim. She went on to publish the bestselling Wendy Quill series with Oxford University Press. Wendy Quill Is a Crocodile’s Bottom (2013), Wendy Quill Tries to Grow a Pet (2014) and Wendy Quill Is Full Up of Wrong (2014) has already sold foreign rights in nine countries (including Spain, Germany, Brazil and Korea). Wendy also writes rhyming picture books for younger children; titles include How the Library (Not the Prince) Saved Rapunzel (Frances Lincoln, 2014) and Montague Brown and the Mouldy Crown (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Before becoming a children’s writer, Wendy spent eight years teaching English literature and critical theory at Oxford University, where she published a variety of academic works under the name Wendy O’Shea-Meddour. Her areas of expertise are feminist theory, postcolonialism, world literature and the 19th-century novel. Wendy lives in Wiltshire.