Children and young adult novelist Geraldine McCaughrean was born in Enfield, England and educated at Christ Church College, Canterbury. She worked as a secretary at Thames Television and later worked for a London publishing house. Her writing career includes the retelling of such classics as "One Thousand and One Arabian Nights," "The Canterbury Tales" and "The Bronze Cauldron: Myths and Legends of the World," which is a collection of stories from all over the world. McCaughrean has won the Whitebread Award for "A Little Lower Than the Angels," the Guardian Prize and Carnegie Medal for "A Pack of Lies," and the Beefeater Children's Novel Award for "Gold Dawn."