The authors
Elizabeth Honey is a popular, award-winning author of poetry, picture books and junior novels. Her playful humour, originality and energy strike a chord with kids everywhere. Her books are published in the USA, Italy and Germany.
She says the best thing about being a writer is the places writing takes her and the people she meets. Another best thing is when someone shyly tells her that they really liked one of her books.
Elizabeth has a new picture book that she collaborated with Sue Johnson from the band Coco's Lunch. Find out more.
She lives in Richmond, an inner suburb of Melbourne.
Heike Brandt grew up in Berlin, the only girl between two boys. After university, she worked with the homeless on a government housing project and then opened up a children’s bookstore. She says about the store: ‘We worked as a collective, read every book before we decided to sell it, published recommendation lists for literature for young people and produced calendars for children.’
Before she published her first book she worked as a translator and has translated over 70 books from English to German, including five of Elizabeth Honey’s books.
She has an adult son and a grandson and is still living in Berlin working as a writer, translator and critic of youth literature.
Elizabeth and Heike met in Berlin in 2002. Heike has translated five of Elizabeth Honey’s books. When Elizabeth suggested to Heike that they write a book together, they both knew they’d be in for an interesting experience. Heike was to be a thirteen-year-old boy from Berlin who would exchange emails with Henni, the main character of Elizabeth’s Stella Street books. Then Heike got a scholarship to travel to Australia and the two writers had a lot of fun plotting the story and sending emails to each other – laptop to laptop – across the desk. They hope readers will enjoy To the Boy in Berlin as much as they enjoyed writing it.
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Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt working together on To The Boy in Berlin
