Tomas Teylor

Thomas Taylor is an English children's writer and illustrator. He drew the cover for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Thomas Taylor has always lived by the sea (which is not difficult in the British Isles). He comes from a family of hereditary sailors, but he chose a career as an illustrator, because artists get less wet and are given more biscuits.

As soon as he had finished art school, he received his first commission — the cover for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After that, Thomas devoted himself to picture books, and some of them even received proper awards.

Thomas always wanted to become a writer, but from childhood he was told, “No, you’re better at drawing — you should become an illustrator,” and so he was afraid to try his hand at writing. Still, he kept trying: first he came up with captions for picture books, and then he began writing novels. It turned out that crunching biscuits while working on a book is even more interesting when you are not only illustrating it, but also creating it.

Today Thomas lives on the south coast of England, not far from the historic town of Hastings, which partly inspired him to create Seaside. Thomas loves combing the beach for treasures, and he has managed to collect many of the things that Mrs Ammonite finds in this book. Most of all, Thomas loves walking along the beach with his sons Max and Benji and with the huge dog Alpha, collecting dinosaur bones and precious sea glass — and inventing the stories hidden behind each such object.

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