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Amy Sparkes

Amy Sparkes was born in Eastbourne and grew up by the sea. She started writing creatively at five years old and wrote many stories, poems and plays throughout her school days. Her first poem was published when she was 13 years old.

She had a magical childhood, filled with ghosts, fairies, witches and curious incidents such as trying to remove the school floor in pursuit of an enchanted land. (Regrettably she was stopped by a teacher before she got there. She hopes to return one day to have another crack at it). Amy also had 13 imaginary friends, but that is another story.

In between her searches for the way to Narnia, Amy now keeps herself busy homeschooling five of her six children and writing stories for children of all ages. Two of her books, 'Ellie's Magic Wellies' and 'Hodge the Hedgehog', have appeared on CBeebies storytime and her books have been shortlisted for several book awards, including the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Booktrust Best Books Awards.

Just in case writing books isn’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Amy also visits schools (she promises to leave the floor alone... more or less), produces the ‘Writing for Children’ pages for the bestselling Writing Magazine, writes short stories for Aquila magazine, tutors on Writing Magazine Creative Writing Courses and runs writing workshops for developing children’s authors.

In July 2017, she founded and launched the 'Writing Magazine Picture Book Prize' in association with Writing Magazine and her agent, Julia Churchill and in 2020 she set up the 'Writing Magazine Chapter Book Prize'.Amy is a passionate supporter of charities and donates 5% of author royalties to various causes and regularly runs fundraising events.

Amy lives in Devon with her husband, where she homeschools five of her six children.She believes that magic is everywhere, if you know where to look…

Genres: Children's Fiction

Series

Gruff's Guide
1. Gruffs Guide to Fairy Tale Land (2011)
2. Gruff's Guide to the Secret Sea (2012)