Today's Famous Brits Assembly was about Cressida Cowell. She was born on 15 April 1966 in London. She is the daughter of Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham. As a child, Cowell said she "grew up in London and on a small, uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland," and that it was during summers spent on the Inner Hebrides where she first began to develop her writing and drawing talents. Cowell attended Keble College, Oxford where she studied English, and she also attended Saint Martin's School of Art and Brighton University where she learned illustration. Cressida Cowell presently resides in London with her husband Simon, a former director and interim CEO of the International Save the Children Alliance.
She is known for the book series, How to Train Your Dragon, which has subsequently become an award-winning franchise as adapted for the screen by DreamWorks Animation.
In addition to her other publications, Cowell works with illustrator Neal Layton in the ongoing series of Emily Brown stories. The first in the series, That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, won a Nestlé Children’s Book Award.