Liz Kessler

Best-known for her books featuring Emily Windsnap, who is half mermaid, Liz Kessler has been writing children’s fiction for over twenty years and her titles range from those for early readers to young adult novels. ...

It was during her childhood in Southport that Kessler first developed a love of writing, encouraged by the printing of her poem ‘Jinx’s Shop’ in the Manchester Evening News in 1976 when she was just nine years old. Qualifications in English, teaching and creative writing followed, as did a spell in journalism and a year touring in a campervan which culminated in a move to a seaside town in Cornwall.

By then, Kessler had made her fiction debut with The Tail of Emily Windsnap (2003), the story of a girl who sets out to reunite her family after discovering that her absent father is being held captive by King Neptune. Inspired in part by views over the harbour in St Ives, of St Michael’s Mount and of the Atlantic more generally, as well as the sense that ‘magical things might be just around the corner’, Kessler has now penned nine volumes in the bestselling series.

Alongside the Emily Windsnap books Kessler has published three titles featuring Philippa Fisher, about a girl befriended by her fairy godsister; adventures for newly independent readers starring her dalmatian Poppy; and numerous standalone novels. Her latest release, 2024’s Code Name Kingfisher, sees two young sisters become involved in the Dutch resistance to the Nazi regime. The book won the Historical Association’s Young Quills award and while its author remains obsessed by anything related to the sea – Kessler is a keen swimmer, surfer, bodyboarder, kayaker and rower – there will undoubtedly be more fiction prizes coming her way.