About Us

Jane Burnard (viola)

Jane Burnard is a freelance editor with over twenty years’ children’s publishing experience. Following an editorial career at Random House and Scholastic, she has since worked freelance for many of the main UK publishing houses, including Egmont, Hachette and Bonnier, across all age ranges, in fiction and non-fiction. She has ghost-written several non-fiction titles and written rhyming picture book texts.

Melissa Balfour (clarinet)

Melissa started her editorial life in the Picture Book Department of Egmont Books, where she later became a Commissioning Editor of illustrated fiction. This gave her the opportunity to work with a whole raft of fantastic authors and illustrators. Since going freelance she has worked for major publishers in the UK and Australia as well as with individual writers, developing and refining their work prior to submission. She has been a reviewer of children’s books and a regular reader of agented submissions. Melissa studied English at London University and has an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Sydney University, where she helped to design the course in Writing for Children.

Jessica Meserve (trombone)

Jessica Meserve is an author/illustrator of three picture books: Small, Can Anybody Hear Me? and Bedtime Without Arthur. She has also illustrated a variety of fiction titles for Andersen, Disney Hyperion, Puffin, Walker and Random House. Prior to her freelance career, Jessica was a designer at Egmont Books, primarily working on early readers and young fiction. She has a BA and an MA in illustration from Edinburgh College of Art. She is currently working on collaborative projects and her own picture books, and is studying for an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Anglia Ruskin University.

Adria Meserve (violin)

Adria Meserve is a picture book author and illustrator with an MA in Sequential Design and Illustration from Brighton University. She has published books with Random House, Scholastic, Little Tiger, Puffin, Piccadilly Press and Franklin Watts and has experience of illustrating fiction as well as non-fiction books.

Adria studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, before going on to a teaching career and then into writing, illustrating and freelance teaching. She particularly enjoys research, experimentation and collaboration when developing projects. Adria’s current book is The Comedy, History and Tragedy of William Shakespeare published by Franklin Watts.