Anna Aparicio Català

A graduate of Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, with a Master’s degree in Children’s Literature, Anna Aparicio Català is a young Spanish illustrator.
Her work has been selected for prestigious international awards, including the Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Award in 2018 and 2019 in China, the Nami Island International Illustration Concours in 2017 in South Korea, and Iberoamérica Ilustra in 2017 and 2018 in Mexico.
In 2019, Anna won the “Livio Sossi” Editorial Illustration Award at the Lucca Junior Competition with the picture book Fino in fondo, published by Kite Edizioni.

Monica Barengo

Born in Turin in 1990, she spent her childhood immersed in nature, where her passion for drawing was born. Today she lives at the foot of Monte Rosa and works with publishers in Italy, France, and Taiwan. Her illustrations appear weekly in the column “Anticorpi” in F Magazine by Cairo Editore. She leads creative workshops for children, courses for illustrators, and provides online consulting for aspiring professionals in the illustration field. Among her major achievements is the prestigious “The New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award 2022”, won for the picture book “Lo scrittore” (written by Davide Calì).

Alice Bonora

A freelance illustrator and graphic designer, she creates illustrations for children and adults, as well as visual designs for projects both large and small.

She writes about herself:
“Illustration is a part of me, but it does not define me completely.
I am versatile, curious, and I live through stories. I believe that every project deserves care and attention, and I try to share all of this through my work, so that you too may find a little place for yourself—because, after all, I am also looking for a little place of my own. I love everything that is funny and quirky!”

Davide Calì

An author, comic book artist and children’s illustrator.
His books are published in Italy by Kite, Orecchio Acerbo, Nomos, Biancoenero and Clichy.
His work has been published in more than thirty countries, especially in France and the United States.
Over the years, he has received numerous international awards and honours in recognition of his career.
This year, he received the Andersen Award for Best Writer.
The award jury celebrated “a wide-ranging body of work with an international outlook… capable of engaging deeply with childhood without moralism”, highlighting the quality of an intense, ironic and thoughtful style of writing, perfectly attuned to the narrative possibilities of the picture book.

Lucia Carlini

Lucia Carlini, born in Rome, is an author and illustrator. She was awarded a scholarship at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, where she earned a degree in Illustration and Animation.
After specializing in printmaking techniques, she published her first book, The Importance of Things, with Kite Edizioni in October 2022, followed by Snakes Don’t Make Noise, also published by the same house.
In addition to writing and illustrating her own stories, she collaborates as an illustrator with established Italian publishers such as Gallucci, Terre di Mezzo, and others.

Tommaso Carozzi

An illustrator, he has also worked in the film industry, animation and museums.
His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Venice Biennale.
It is populated by gigantic hybrid animals, strange worlds and curious creatures that serve as metaphors for the relationship between humankind and nature.

Eleonora De Pieri

She attended the Padua Art Institute, where she discovered the world of children’s illustration.
After graduating, she specialised in the field by attending workshops at the International School of Sarmede (Treviso), the Artelier cultural association in Padua and Fabbrica delle Favole in Macerata.
Her work has been published in France and Italy.
For many years, she has led creative illustration and art-based play workshops for children in schools throughout the province of Padua, while also collaborating with libraries and cultural associations.

Isidro Ferrer

A graduate in Dramatic Arts and Set Design, he works in the field of visual communication as an illustrator, graphic designer and product designer.
He is the author of more than fifty illustrated books published in Spanish, French, English, Italian, Romanian, Korean and Portuguese.
His work has been featured in solo exhibitions around the world.
He has received Spain’s National Design Award and National Illustration Award, and has been a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 2000.

Cecilia Ferri

Born in 1992, Cecilia Ferri graduated in Illustration and Comics from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, where she also completed a two-year postgraduate degree in Illustration for Publishing.
Over the years, she has taken part in several exhibitions, including the Macmillan Prize in London, the Silent Book Contest at the 2015 Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Pagine d’Arte in Bologna.
In 2016, she won the “Giorgio Morandi” engraving award, and the work she submitted was exhibited at the Pinacoteca di Bologna.
In 2017, her work was selected for the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, where she received the Ars in Fabula Grant Award.
She later attended a master’s programme in Macerata, during which she worked on the book Ora o mai più.

Mercè Galí

She grew up in Barcelona, in the bookshop owned by her parents. After studying Drawing, Illustration and Printmaking, she specialized in children’s and YA illustration, collaborating with various publishers and magazines. She also works in cultural communication and leads illustration workshops and seminars. Her style stands out for its spontaneous linework, creative use of ink blots, collage, photography, and a constant search for synthesis that enables expressive power—always with a touch of humour.
This style is present in the three books she has published so far with Kite: Il piccolo indiano, Quando ho perso la testa, and Dieci teste e nove cappelli.

Matteo Gubellini

Born in Bergamo in 1972, after attending art school he graduated from the Milan School of Comics. He is the author and illustrator of numerous picture books published by several Italian publishing houses and has received major awards in national and international competitions.
Since 2008, alongside his work as an illustrator, he has created storytelling performances combining puppetry and music, and has led courses and workshops throughout Italy. He teaches artistic techniques at the Sarmede International School of Illustration.
His style brings together drawing, storytelling, music and experimentation through a poetic, ironic and visionary language.

Guridi

Guridi is an illustrator, designer and creative artist from Seville who has worked across almost every area of graphic and editorial imagery, from printmaking and editorial design to advertising and ephemeral architecture.
Since 2010, he has combined teaching with his artistic practice, focusing mainly on the illustration of books for children and young adults, as well as posters for theatre and dance.
His extensive bibliography includes more than eighty books, some of which have been translated into over fourteen languages, both as an author and co-author in the fields of picture books and creativity manuals.

Adalgisa Masella

A children’s illustrator, she has been absorbed in details for as long as she can remember.
In 2019, she won the “Publisher’s Special Award for Storyboarding” at the Lucca Junior competition.
She works as a freelance illustrator on private commissions and animated videos.
She also teaches at art schools and leads creative workshops.

Laura Mazzocchi

Laura Mazzocchi was born in Milan and lives with her family among the vineyards of Franciacorta.
She holds a diploma in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and a diploma in Illustration from IED Milan.
Her work has been selected for several illustration competitions, and she received a special mention in the Lucca Junior competition.
She loves the transparency of watercolours and liquorice gummy sweets.

Eva Montanari

Eva Montanari was born in Rimini in 1977.
She attended the Riccione Art Institute and the European Institute of Design in Milan.
Alongside her work as an author and illustrator, she teaches illustration courses in Italy and abroad.
Her books have been published in Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and France.
Her work has been selected several times for the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Original Art at the Society of Illustrators in New York, the Sarmede International Illustration Exhibition, the Croatian Biennial of Illustration and Ilustrarte in Portugal.

Michela Nodari

Michela Nodari is an author from Genoa. After earning a degree in Contemporary History, she began working in schools as an educator.
For many years, she has been involved in activities supporting children and young people with disabilities and neurodivergent conditions.
She lives in Liguria, in a small pink house nestled between the mountains and the sea.
There, she writes her stories under the watchful eye of a dog, four cats, three black sheep, and an unspecified number of chickens.

Federica Ortolan

Federica Ortolan was born in Venice in 1980 and now lives in Piombino Dese, a town between Treviso and Padua.
After completing classical studies, she studied Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Venice.
She graduated in Primary Education from the University of Padua, focusing her research mainly on children’s cognitive responses to creative stimuli.
She writes picture books for children and adults.
Her books have been published by several Italian publishers, including Clichy, Carthusia, Il Castoro, Edizioni Corsare, Uovonero, Lavieri and Sabir.
Some of her books have received national awards and have been translated into other languages.
Alongside her writing, she promotes literature for children and young adults and organises training programmes for adults.

Gabriel Pacheco

A graduate in Set Design from Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts, with a diploma in Art History from the National Centre for the Arts, he has worked as an illustrator since 1998.
He has received numerous international awards, including a Special Mention at the BolognaRagazzi Awards in 2009, the CJ Picture Book Award in 2010 and the Sharjah Children’s Book Award in 2012.
He has also been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
His books have been selected for the Munich International Youth Library’s White Ravens list, the American Institute of Graphic Arts’ 50 Books/50 Covers catalogue and the Book Bank in Venezuela.

Margaux Romano

Margaux Romano was born in Lodi in 2001, where she began her artistic journey.
She moved to Bologna in 2021 to study Comics and Illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In her work, she often combines traditional and digital techniques, mainly using wax crayons, collage and watercolour.
Colour plays a central role in her illustrations, together with experimentation with proportions and the exploration of atmosphere.

In 2026, she won the Bologna Children’s Book Fair–Fundación SM International Award for Illustration.

Victoria Semiykina

Victoria Semykina is an illustrator, painter and tireless collector of useless yet indispensable details.
She lives in Bologna, where she fills sketchbooks with drawings, notes and chance encounters.
Her work often grows out of journeys, flea markets, cities observed at an unhurried pace and an almost childlike curiosity for things that seem out of place.
Through picture books, drawings and exhibition projects, she tells stories in which the everyday and the fantastic coexist naturally.
She has apparently collaborated with MoMA, Tate Modern, Google, Airbnb, Penguin Random House, illy, Vista Alegre, Starbucks and many others.

Matilde Tacchini

Matilde Tacchini is an art director, illustrator, and children’s author. After graduating in Art Direction at NABA, she worked for 15 years on successful advertising campaigns. She then opened her own creative studio in Piacenza, where she now focuses on graphic design and children’s literature—her true passion.

Kaatje Vermeire

Kaatje Vermeire was born in Ghent on 9 August 1981 and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts there.
Her first picture book, De vrouw en het jongetje (The Woman and the Boy), was published in 2008 and won the Boekenpluim award.
Her second picture book, The Things in Life, earned her two awards, in 2010 and 2015, and was included among the fifty best illustrated books of 2013.
Known for her eclectic style, Kaatje embraces a wide range of techniques, skilfully combining collage, printmaking, painting, drawing and digital media.
Dreamlike and sometimes surreal, the visually and emotionally striking images born from this experimental approach are always rich in detail, inviting readers to wander, lose themselves and find their way again.