Emily Randall-Jones author page

Emily Randall-Jones biography

Emily Randall-Jones is a UK children’s author specialising in middle-grade ghost stories and folk-horror. Before publishing fiction she worked as a touring actor, at Hampton Court as a costumed interpreter, and for the National Trust creating visitor experiences.

Her debut novel, The Witchstone Ghosts (Chicken House, 14 September 2023), won the 2021 Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition and the Mslexia Children’s & YA Novel Competition. The book was longlisted for the Branford Boase Award in 2024 and selected as The Times Children’s Book of the Week. Her second novel, The Scream of the Whistle (Chicken House, June 2025), is a time-slip paranormal adventure centred on a haunted steam train.

Randall-Jones’s work draws on English folklore, coastal settings, and atmospheric mystery for readers aged 9–12. Alongside writing she leads school and festival workshops on story craft and creativity.

Selected works: The Witchstone Ghosts (Chicken House, 2023); The Scream of the Whistle (Chicken House, 2025).