Little Steps: Manners

About Kay Barnham

Kay Barnham was born in Barrow-in-Furness grew up in Carlisle went to college in Brighton and lived in Hove for a while before sailing for Kinsale Co Cork popping back to Hove and then moving to the New Forest with her husband and daughter. And never at any point has she lived more than ten miles from the sea. She began working in children's publishing in 1992. She was an editor first of all working on illustrated non-fiction and learning fun facts like how long it would take to walk to the moon - nine years - and how to spell palaeontology. Next she commissioned fiction titles editing picture books storybooks and novels. And then she got the chance to write her own books which she thinks is quite the best job ever. Except possibly being a chocolatier. She writes non-fiction as Kay Barnham. Her specialist subjects include ice-skating Isambard Kingdom Brunel lightning fairies Roald Dahl Sir Isaac Newton Christmas dolphins Florence Nightingale and very bad cracker jokes. And chocolate. She also writes fiction as Kay Woodward including the Skate School series for Usborne and the novels Jane Airhead and Wuthering Hearts for Andersen Press. Altogether she's written about a hundred books. Her favourite colour is navy blue. Her favourite chocolate is 85% cocoa solids.