About the Illustrator

of

Alfred and the Pirates

Emily when she first met Irving

                   EMILY DONEGAN was born in 1990, and, as the book comes out, is 15 years old.  She was only 12 when she began the drawings for Alfred and the Pirates.  Emily lives in Northern Ireland.

A born illustrator, Emily picked up her first ball-point pen when she was eight months old and has been drawing non-stop ever since.  

Emily was the winner of the 2003 BBC TV Blue Peter competition to design a poster for the British Museum on its 250^th Birthday.  Her design, entitled See the World…Under One Roof was chosen as winner out of 7000 entries.  It was made into a full-colour poster which was distributed to schools all over the UK, and shown on the London Underground.  Today Emily is rarely seen without a pen in her hand.  It is her ambition to write and illustrate her own books.  This is her first book.

        Emily has a real talent and I look forward to seeing lots more of her drawings.
                -Quentin Blake