Sara Ogilvie
Illustrator: mentor in 2025
Sara Ogilvie is an award-winning illustrator and printmaker from Edinburgh based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her bestselling children’s books include Dog’s Don’t Do Ballet by Anna Kemp and The Zebra’s Great Escape by Katharine Rundell. Her collaborations with Julia Donaldson, The Detective Dog and The Hospital Dog, have sold over a million copies worldwide and have won the Books Are My Bag Readers Award and the UK Indie Book Awards.
“Working with Antara was an absolute pleasure. I immediately connected with her strong sense of self-motivation and her artwork, which is full of lively characterisation and expressive detail. She has a keen interest in historical, social, and environmental themes, which she thoughtfully weaves into her illustrations, offering rich potential for storytelling and meaningful conversation. During our online sessions, we collaborated via a shared digital board to exchange ideas on character design and spread compositions for her dummy book, The Camels of Kachchh. I was fascinated by the story’s foundation — balancing the touching relationship between a boy and his camel with the real issue of traditional camel-grazing habitats being lost to salt pan manufacturing. Our discussions were always engaging, and Antara consistently invited frank and constructive feedback with a refreshing openness that will serve her well throughout her picture book career and future collaborations. I’m very much looking forward to seeing her books in print.”
