Hello! I’m Jo Cotterill and I write books for children and young people. Some random things about me:
1. I live in Oxfordshire.
2. I have two daughters who make me laugh every day and give the best hugs.
3. I love cheese. And chocolate. And CAKE. Cake seems to be very important to writers. When we meet up, there is almost always cake involved.
4. I love the Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing. When I was younger I studied ballet, jazz and tap dance, so I’d love to have a go at ballroom one day.
5. One of my previous jobs was being a fireworks technician. I got to wear a hard hat and a boiler suit with my name on it, and I got very close to explosives and it was frightening and fun all at the same time.
6. When I was a teenager, I didn’t write a lot of stories. Instead, I wrote a lot of music. And I played flute, piccolo, alto saxophone, piano and violin. Nowadays I can’t play them all very well (because being good at something takes practice and I don’t do it any more!) but sometimes, I still write songs.
7. I love talking to kids about books and stories. They have the BEST ideas.
8. I love starting a story and not really knowing where it’s going. For me, the magic of writing is not knowing what’s going to come out of your imagination next.
9. One of the nicest things about being an author is being friends with other authors who are just as bonkers as you are.
10. I have won the following awards: The Hampshire Book Award, the North East Book Award, the Coventry Inspiration Book Award, the Oxfordshire Book Award, the Stockport Children’s Book Award, the Tower Hamlets Book Award and the Fantastic Book Awards. Awards are lovely things because it’s nice to get prizes, but the best thing about them is knowing that lots of young people liked your made-up stuff.
Jo Cotterill 
Hi Jo I recently read one of your books called Jelly. I found it really gripping and was up till ten at night reading it – where do you get your ideas from?! I can’t wait to read another one of your books!
Merhaba Jo. Bu gün Limon Kütüphanesi’ni okudum. Gerçekten çok akıcıydı. Okurken kaç kez ağladığımı bilmiyorum. 34 yaşındayım ve kitabı sayfamda paylaşıp, tavsiye ettim dostlara. Türkiye de yaşıyorum. Okul öncesi için bir hikaye kitabı hayalim vardı. Hikayesini bitirdim. Senin de okuyup fikrini almayı çok isterdim. Eminim yorumların çok şey katacak. Sevgilerimle. Nurcan
Dear Nurcan, I’m so glad you enjoyed A Library of Lemons! And how lovely that you’re writing your own books too. Sadly I can’t offer to help because I don’t read Turkish! But I wish you very much luck with it 🙂 Jo x
hello jo.
I’m writing from Turkey destiny.
I have now finished the lemon library.
It was a really impressive book.
I also love to read books, I hope I will have the opportunity to meet you one day.
Take care of yourself.
(✿^‿^)
Hi Ms. Jo I was read lemon library.It was nice and absorbing thank you for writed 💞
Hi Hümeyra, you’re so welcome! I’m very glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Didn’t you also win the tower hamlets book award for your amazing book ‘A libary of lemons’.
I did! It was an AMAZING day and I wrote about it here: https://jocotterill.com/2017/11/28/winning-the-tower-hamlets-book-awards/ Jo x
Oh, and I just realised you meant I missed it off my list!! Have just added it – thank you! 🙂 x