Joanne Surman has a Masters in Illustration and began her career in advertising, weaving through many spheres of the design industry including software graphics, 3D modeling, and animation for the computer games industry, children's television (BBC and Channel 4), website design, and interactive software design for heritage sites (National Trust and museums). She is now a full-time illustrator of children's books. Snow? was the winner of the Stratford-Salariya Children's Picture Book Prize.