Dave Shelton

Dave Shelton is a British author and illustrator from Leicester, England, known for children's and middle-grade fiction that pairs whimsical premises with his own artwork. His debut novel, A Boy and a Bear in a Boat (2012), an absurdist, melancholy tale of a boy and a bear adrift at sea, won the Kitschies' Inky Tentacle award for its cover art and illustration, which Shelton created himself. He followed it with Thirteen Chairs (2014), a linked collection of ghost stories told by strangers gathered in an old house. Shelton illustrates his own books, giving his fiction a distinctive, hand-drawn visual identity alongside its dry, understated humor.