Pam Smy is a Senior Lecturer Practitioner in Illustration on the MA Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. She combines her teaching career with writing and illustrating. She studied on the MA herself, graduating with the first cohort in 2004. Since then she has worked with a range of UK publishers including The Folio Society, Penguin Random House and David Fickling Books. Pam has illustrated books by Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles), Julia Donaldson (Follow the Swallow) and Kathy Henderson (Hush, Baby, Hush!), among others.
Her first novel, Thornhill was a critical and commercial success, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the UKLA Book Awards, and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2018 and winning the 2018 British Book Design & Production Award for Graphic Novels. She has delivered many talks and illustration workshops, including school events and major literary festivals.
Pam lives in Cambridge with her husband, author-illustrator Dave Shelton, and her child, Mila. Most early mornings you’ll see her walking her dog, Barney, along All Souls’ Lane into the graveyard, past Frances Cornford’s poem, the hidden pillbox and around the field beyond all of which inspired the setting and story for The Hideaway.
Photo credit Zulfiya Wilde