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Writing and Illustrating Stories Is Our Passion
About the Author
As a girl, Tereza lived in a small village just outside one of the castles of Prague, Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic), next to an old wood and a gentle, flowing stream. She and her father spent long summer days lying in the grass, watching the wildlife, and telling each other stories about the lives, hopes and dreams of all the animals they saw. Soon, the world of Spikey and all his friends was born.
Later, Tereza and her family moved to England, and after a few years, she missed Spikey and his friends, so they all moved back to the Czech Republic again.
Tereza grew up. She worked hard and became a journalist, a newsreader and a political reporter, allowing her to tell different stories to the whole wide world.
However, London kept calling to Tereza. Soon, she moved back to this beautiful, ancient and vibrant city that’s so full of stories, and she now lives in Islington with her husband John and their cat, Johnson, and a beagle puppy called Sniff. Everyone is now a Hepburn, and as you might know, Hepburns always have many more stories to tell.
About the Illustrators
Spikey and his friends would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mike Phillips (1961-2024).
Mike drew the beautiful illustrations for the first three books in the Spikey series. Every picture is a delight, full of colour and humour, and captures the animals’ characters perfectly. His unique talent is what brought the stories to life. He was Spikey's first ever friend and a very special one. He deserves a whole heap of hedgehugs.
When working on an image, Rupert Van Wyk says that he becomes the characters he is creating. “I am acting out their movements and gestures. I try to capture the action of my subject creating that moment in time. Everyday objects provide visual clues to make the picture more - real.” Rupert is British and passionate about travel. He has travelled the planet extensively for years and now lives and works in Ravenna, Italy.
He is represented by Beehive Illustration. Examples of his work can be found here.