John was born in Larne, Northern Ireland and in his childhood had a passion for writing and illustrating comics. In the early 1990's he trained as a primary school teacher, so ended up reading a lot of children’s books and rediscovered his love of children's literature. Naturally enough, reading soon led to writing, and after a while he began sending stories to different publishers. Soon he was signed up by Random House Children's Books and soon wrote the highly popular Zeus on the Loose, which was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award for ‘an outstanding first novel for children’.

John now lives locally in Stroud. John has been very popular at Wychwood so we’re delighted to have him back. John will be reading from Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers.

John Dougherty:

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