Sally Gardner – Best selling Author

 

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Sally Gardner: The Woman Who Reached Into the Fog and Found Magic

Sally Gardner is a name synonymous with literary magic.  She is a best selling and celebrated British author who has sold over 3 million copies of her books – worldwide.

“Pernickety Boo” was published by Harper Collins in 2024.  It is a story about a magical umbrella and its adventures..

Sally Gardner has always believed that the past is just a breath away—waiting, not gone.

PhotographerUrszula Soltys

As a child growing up in London’s Gray’s Inn, the air often turned thick with pea-souper fogs, that ghostly shroud of Victorian London. Most children found it eerie. Sally saw it as a portal. Somewhere in that fog, she was sure, walked Charles Dickens. He had once worked in the same building she lived in. She’d climb the same worn sandstone steps and imagine his “little feet” scampering just ahead of her own. History was not something behind glass—it was something you might brush with your hand if you reached out far enough.  This instinct—to find the living heart of story within the folds of time—has never left her. Her books are filled with it: a kind of glittering historical surrealism where magic hides in plain sight, where clocks might whisper secrets and lost girls walk tightropes between worlds.

Diagnosed late with dyslexia, Sally didn’t learn to read until she was fourteen. Her schooling years were difficult; her spelling so unusual, teachers spoke of it as if she were writing in a foreign language. But even then, she was bursting with stories. She told them to herself, out loud, conjuring entire emotional universes in her mind—until she could make herself cry, or so frightened she couldn’t move. She was not without books entirely: The Cat in the Hat was the first she ever read alone. It opened a door. She never stopped walking through it.

Photographer Urszula Soltys

Though she once dreamed of becoming a painter, Sally found herself drawn to the theatre. There, she discovered something elemental: story could live and breathe right in front of you—or fall flat if the magic failed. As a scene painter and backstage hand, Sally learned that spectacle alone wasn’t enough. She’d watch from the wings as some productions dazzled with lights and grandeur—only to lose their audience by the second act. She became fascinated by what held people’s attention, and what lost it. She saw the front row doze off mid-monologue, heads nodding like flowers in a breeze. But then, during a chaotic, over-ambitious production of Rupert Bear—complete with a drunken giraffe puppet, crossed wires, and an elephant muttering profanities—something extraordinary happened. An actress stepped forward and began to sing. In that moment, the entire theatre fell silent. Hundreds of fidgeting schoolchildren froze in rapture. That, Sally realised, was true magic: not the scale of the show, but the spell cast by a single human voice when the story rang true.

It wasn’t until later, under the guidance of legendary children’s editor Judith Elliott, that Sally truly became a writer. Elliott saw through the spelling and the unconventional form and told her plainly: “You are a writer.” It was all Sally needed. Her first book, The Strongest Girl in the World, was published with almost no corrections—testament to a voice that had been quietly honing itself for years in the shadows.

Today, Sally Gardner is one of Britain’s most original literary voices. Her novels span everything from magical realism to speculative fiction to historically-rooted fantasy. Her Carnegie Medal-winning Maggot Moon and Costa-winning I, Coriander are beloved by readers of all ages. But whether her stories are set in imagined futures or shadowed pasts, the thread is always the same: a belief that the world is filled with unseen doors, and that art—true art—can unlock them.

She still believes that if the fog is thick enough, and the story strong enough, you might just reach out and touch the past.

SALLY GARDNER

Author | Illustrator | Librettist | Advocate for Neurodivergent Creatives | Location: South East, UK

Photographer Urszula Soltys

PROFILE

Award-winning British author and illustrator celebrated for her genre-defying blend of historical fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. Known for centring neurodivergent voices and outsider characters, Gardner has written across age groups—from picture books to adult literary fiction—and won multiple major awards including the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. A trained theatre designer and former illustrator, she brings vivid visual imagination and deep narrative intuition to all her work.

EDUCATION

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Diploma in Theatre and Costume Design

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Theatre Designer & Scene Painter
– Worked across major London theatres in scenic art and costume design
– Developed a lifelong interest in how narrative holds—or loses—an audience
– Learned the fundamentals of visual storytelling, atmosphere, and stagecraft

Illustrator & Visual Artist
– Transitioned into children’s publishing as an illustrator
– Worked on picture books before writing and illustrating her own

PUBLISHED WORKS (SELECTED)

Children’s & Young Adult Fiction

  • The Little Nut Tree (1993, Orion Books) – Debut as writer and illustrator

  • I, Coriander (2005) – Winner, Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (9–11)

  • The Red Necklace (2007) & The Silver Blade (2009) – Historical fantasy set during the French Revolution

  • The Double Shadow (2011) – Speculative fiction set in 1930s Britain

  • Maggot Moon (2012) – Costa Children’s Book Award, Carnegie Medal

  • Tinder (2013) – Dark retelling of the Tinderbox set during the Thirty Years’ War

  • Pernickety Boo (2024, HarperCollins) – A magical umbrella adventure for children

Adult Fiction

Published as Wray Delaney:

  • An Almond for a Parrot – Described by The Guardian as “an irresistible erotic fairytale”

  • Beauty of the Wolf

Published as Sally Gardner:

  • The Snow Song

  • The Weather Woman – Shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown

CURRENT & FORTHCOMING PROJECTS

  • Librettist, Angels on the Underground – New opera to be staged at the Young Vic in 2025

  • Continues to write and speak on dyslexia, creativity, and neurodiversity

AWARDS & HONOURS

ADVOCACY & OUTREACH

  • Active campaigner for literacy and neurodiversity in education

  • Keynote speaker on creative learning, the dyslexic imagination, and overcoming educational exclusion

  • Patron of organisations supporting children with learning differences

CREATIVE THEMES & STYLE

  • Historical and alternative timelines

  • Magic realism and speculative fiction

  • Strong outsider protagonists

  • Championing dyslexic and neurodiverse perspectives

  • Literary voice blending poetic form, visual imagery, and narrative suspense

INFLUENCES & INSPIRATION

  • Childhood fascination with Dickens and the atmospheric London fog

  • Love of theatre and opera—its rhythm, ritual, and ability to enchant

  • Musical inspiration from Gertrude Lawrence and Façade

  • Literary admiration for The Great Gatsby and its elegant fatalism

  • A deep belief that the most powerful stories are the ones we tell ourselves first