Hayley Long was born in Ipswich in 1971.  She wrote her first ever book when she was seven years old.  It was called Toot the Owl and even though it wasn’t very good, her mum never threw it away.  After leaving school, Hayley went to university in Aberystwyth and then spent several years working in various countries in Europe.  Eventually she ran out of money and came back to Britain to be an English teacher and it was while she was doing this, in London, that she began writing books of her own.

Hayley now teaches English at Paston Sixth-Form College in Norfolk and when she isn’t doing this, she keeps on writing stuff.  Lottie Biggs is not Mad, the first in a series of books for young adults has now been translated into several different languages and has been awarded the White Raven label for ‘noteworthy and remarkable books’ by the International Youth Library in Munich.

Some of Hayley’s favourite things are chocolate, chips, chicken korma, chilli con carne, cheesy footballs, chunky Kit Kats, chubby bunnies (this doesn’t mean overfed ones though), chinchillas, chimpanzees (and orang-utans), Charles Dickens, Christopher Marlowe, Charlotte Brontë (and her sisters), Chaucer, Chaka Kahn, the Channel Islands, the Czech Republic (and anywhere else in Eastern Europe), the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, cheap train tickets, the chap from the James Bond films and also, especially, the chap she’s married to.

However, she really absolutely does not like chewing-gum.

Hayley lives in Norwich with a rabbit called Irma and a husband.

www.pollingerlimited.com/hayleylong