Chook Doolan: Let's Do Diwali

About the Author

James Roy was born in Trundle, western NSW. When he was ten months old his parents accepted a missionary appointment to the highlands of Papua New Guinea. A placement in Fiji followed some years later and, by the age of sixteen, James had spent more than half of his life living in the islands of the South Pacific. He attributes much of his early interest in books to the absence of TV, a wonderful library full of adventure books, and the opportunity to play as those characters in wild, adventuresome places. James lives in the Blue Mountains with his family and writes both fiction and non-fiction for children and young adults. His books have won many awards and he travels throughout Australia talking about books and writing. He is an advocate for boys' literacy.

Lucinda Gifford was brought up in Scotland and originally intended to become an architect, studying Architecture at Edinburgh and Bath Universities. Lucinda’s love of drawing buildings was cancelled out at the time by an overwhelming disinterest in construction sites and the newly-introduced CAD technology, and so she went on to spend a very enjoyable fifteen years in Auckland, London and Melbourne working in advertising and design. These days, Lucinda lives with her family in Melbourne’s northern suburbs – and works as an illustrator, author-illustrator and graphic designer from her cosy, messy home studio. Lucinda uses pencil, ink, crayon, marker, and watercolour to produce her illustrations, and usually uses PhotoShop to put everything together. When not sketching, designing or developing story ideas, Lucinda enjoys plot twists, beach walks and staring out the windows of Melbourne trams.