Photo of Cathy Cassidy

Cathy Cassidy

I was born in 1962 in Coventry (scarily ancient, I know!). I wrote my first picture book for my little brother when I was eight or nine. I loved making comics, too – pages and pages of picture stories, features and competitions. I’d sell my homemade comic to a friend for 5p, then claim it back and sell it again to someone else,they didn’t have photocopiers back then!

I went to Art College in Liverpool, then got a job as fiction editor on the fab and legendary Jackie magazine. Later, I married my boyfriend Liam, went back to college and trained to be an art teacher. I taught in a Coventry secondary school for a few years, which I loved, then moved to Scotland with Liam to start a family.

My kids are 13 and 14 years old now, and the four of us live in a cottage in the Galloway hills with sheep and cows for neighbours. As well as writing books, I am the agony aunt on Shout magazine and sometimes teach art in the local primary schools, which is great fun and keeps me sane. (Well, maybe!)

I’ve been veggie for 30 years, and was vegan for 8 of them – a chocolate-eating vegan, like Storm! I love old clothes, old toys, cars, books. We have three cats, two rabbits and a mad, hairy lurcher called Kelpie (the model for Leggit in my book Dizzy).

I love my family, I love living in the middle of nowhere and I love my work. Of all my jobs, writing has to be the best – it’s the perfect excuse to daydream, after all!

Books by Cathy Cassidy

  • Angel Cake

    Angel Cake

  • Broken Heart Club

    Broken Heart Club

  • Cherry Crush

    Cherry Crush

  • Dizzy

    Dizzy

  • Driftwood

    Driftwood

  • Ginger Snaps

    Ginger Snaps

  • Indigo Blue

    Indigo Blue

  • Looking Glass Girl

    Looking Glass Girl

  • Looking Glass Girl

    Looking Glass Girl

  • Lucky Star

    Lucky Star

  • Marshmallow Skye

    Marshmallow Skye

  • Scarlett

    Scarlett

  • Strike a Pose, Daizy Star

    Strike a Pose, Daizy Star

  • Summer's Dream

    Summer's Dream

  • Sundae Girl

    Sundae Girl

  • The Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel

    The Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel

  • The Chocolate Box Girls: Fortune Cookie

    The Chocolate Box Girls: Fortune Cookie

  • The Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey

    The Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey

Awards

Cathy won the Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children’s Books for Scarlett in 2007, the Lincolnshire Young People’s Book Award in 2009 and the 2013 Doncaster Book Award for Summer’s Dream. She was also crowned Queen of Teen in 2010.