Andrea Rowe & Hannah Sommerville
Andrea Rowe is a best-selling, award-winning picture book author. Andrea loves to write stories where characters explore the great outdoors, ponder big questions and move through tricky feelings, which inspire conversations amongst children, families and educators. Her picture book, Jetty Jumping (illustrated by Hannah Sommerville), was awarded the 2022 CBCA Picture Book of the Year – Early Childhood. Andrea is also the winner of several Australian short story awards, an ambassador for Australian children's literature, an Ardoch Youth Foundation Writer In Resident and Mary Jane Lewis Scholarship Foundation mentor, and has been awarded a 2024 May Gibbs Fellowship.
Hannah Sommerville is a best-selling picture book illustrator who creates enchanting watercolour, gouache and digital illustrations in her studio on the South Coast of New South Wales. Hannah earned a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts and Graphic Design) at the University of Wollongong in 2006, and began illustrating in 2010 after the arrival of her young children. Hannah is a storyteller who enjoys creating picture books that capture the imagination, tenderness and playfulness that surround children and family life. Her picture book Jetty Jumping, written by Andrea Rowe, won Early Childhood Book of the Year at the 2022 Children's Book Council of Australia awards.