Sophie Payne author page

Sophia Payne biography

Sophia Payne is a British Indo-Caribbean children’s author whose work spans picture books, young fiction and educational texts. Her stories often centre food, family and everyday kindness.

Represented by the Alice Williams Literary Agency, Payne has written for Templar, Walker Books, Collins Big Cat and Hodder Education. Her debut picture book, Faruq and the Wiri Wiri (Templar, 2023), illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat, celebrates Guyanese cooking and intergenerational traditions. A North American edition has been issued by Candlewick.

Further publications include The Beautiful Layers of Me (Candlewick/Walker), illustrated by Ruchi Mhasane, alongside curriculum-aligned reading texts for Collins Big Cat and Hodder’s Reading Planet list. Payne’s work has been profiled in national children’s-book coverage, including The Guardian’s “children’s and teens” roundup (February 2023) for Faruq and the Wiri Wiri.

Before publication, Payne won the WriteMentor Children’s Picture Book Award (2020), an accolade that helped pave the way to agency representation and her first trade book deal. A confirmed recent recognition: Faruq and the Wiri Wiri was shortlisted for the Inclusive Books for Children Awards 2024.