Tia Fisher was born in Berkshire but spent her childhood in East Anglia. There, desperate to escape the confines of her tiny village, she read indiscriminately through the shelves of the local library and poured out poems of unrequited love (which she kept private) and protest (which she pinned to the school noticeboard). After being expelled from secondary school and then dropping out of university, Tia had a bewildering variety of jobs – from TV presenter to ESOL teacher to artists’ model – before finding her happy place working in libraries and writing stories. In her fifties she went back to university, and is now the proud owner of a master’s degree in writing for young people. She recently moved back to East Anglia and (rather to her surprise) loves it. She writes books for the rebel inside her.

Not Going to Plan (28th August 2025, Hot Key Books) is Tia’s second verse novel, this time for a YA audience. It was shortlisted for the 2026 Carnegie Medal for Writing. Her debut verse novel for teens, Crossing the Line (2024, Hot Key Books) was the winner of the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal, the UKLA 11-14+ prize, and is in the 2024 Reading for Empathy collection. In 2026 Piccadilly Press will publish Tia’s debut middle-grade story, Operation Doodlebug, set in World War Two. Tia’s website is tiafisher.com and her socials can be found at linktr.ee/tiafisherwrites.