Helen Stephens

Helen is an award-winning author, illustrator, best known for her 'How to Hide A Lion' series. 'How to Hide a Lion' has become known as an international bestselling classic of picture books. Her books are published in about 30 languages worldwide.

Helen grew up in County Durham in a rambling old house in the countryside that her mum and dad were renovating. She spent the long summer holidays roaming around the countryside and drawing. She studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art before heading to London for a few weeks to try to get published, but accidentally stayed there for nearly two decades. She now lives on the windy Northumberland coast with her family and her smelly dog, Peggy.

Helen loves to try new ways of working: some of Helen’s books are made by hand on paper, like ye olden days, some are a hybrid of handmade and digital, and recently Helen made a picture book entirely on Procreate. She likes to draw with sticks dipped in ink, and paint with scrunched up toilet paper.

Helen takes her dog Peggy for long walks on the beach every day to blow away the illustrating cobwebs and untangle tricky writing problems. Peggy likes to run off and find smelly things to roll in like dead fish and rabbit poops.