Marcus Sedgwick

Marcus Sedgwick (b 1968) was born in Kent, England. He is a British author, illustrator, and musician. He has published novels such as FloodlandM (winner of the Branford Boase Award in 2001) and The Dark Horse (shortlisted for The Guardian Children's Book Award 2002). He is also the author of several picture books, and has illustrated a collection of myths and a book of folk tales for adults.

After working as a bookseller and working in children's publishing, Sedgwick began writing seriously in 1994. His first book, Floodland, was published in 2000 to praise from critics, and it received the Branford-Boase award for the best first children's novel of that year. Floodland tells the story of Zoe, who lives on her own on an island that used to be part of England before global warming caused the seas to rise. Though a Horn Book reviewer commented that the book could have used further developed characters, the reviewer concluded, "this first novel is sufficiently taut, accessible, and swift moving to make it an effective cautionary tale."