About Us

Rachel Leyshon
Publisher

Rachel Leyshon grew up in Northern Ireland and South Wales. She read English at the University of Birmingham and at the Open University, and began her career in publishing in 1994, shortly after graduating. Her first job was at a literary agency, though she went on to work as an editor of adult fiction and non-fiction, notably at Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Orion, before finding her natural home in children’s books at the Chicken House. Her authors have been translated into many languages and shortlisted for multiple awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. In 2017 she won the Branford Boase, and was shortlisted for Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Esther Waller
Publishing Manager

After exhausting the children’s section of her local library, Esther’s main aim in pre-teen life was to sneak books from the YA section past her mum. Aged sixteen she spent a year in Romania, which led to a Romanian language course. Realizing that English was actually the language love of her life, she left to study English Literature at the University of Sussex. She interviewed a certain Barry Cunningham for a dissertation on children’s publishing.

Esther became an intern at Chicken House after graduation, which then turned into a proper job. After over a decade she is very happily institutionalized, now as Publishing Manager. She lives with her husband and three children.

Laura Myers
Publishing Manager

Laura Myers joined Chicken House as Publishing Manager in 2010. Having previously worked in Publicity, Sales and Marketing, she has found her home in the Production and Editorial department, where being a pedant is a good thing.

Graduating with a degree in Publishing, Laura always planned to work with children’s fiction, having never quite let go of children’s books as she grew up. Her reading tastes could be called eclectic, but perhaps are more accurately described as random and haphazard. Lover of fiction, fonts, cats and very specific music, Laura lives in Somerset with her husband, daughter and two cats with human names.

Jazz Bartlett Love
Head of PR &Marketing

Jazz knew she wanted to work in publishing from the age of 15, when she realised that was as close as she would get to being a professional reader. After a degree in English Language she worked in production at Macmillan Children’s Books, before Chicken House gave in to her relentless badgering and offered her an interview.

She now looks after Chicken House’s sales, publicity and marketing strategy, spreading the word about our great books and getting them to as many young readers as possible. In 2021 she won a BMS Award and in 2023 was named a Bookseller Rising Star.

Shalu Vallepur
Editor

Like many bibliophiles, Shalu found a home reading English literature at university. Never forgetting the magic of exploring new worlds in books as a child, she began to pursue a career in children’s publishing. Starting with writing and editing children’s non-fiction, she found a passion for editing fiction. Primarily a devourer of fantasy, sci-fi and spec fic, Shalu’s reading tastes have no boundaries and she adores everything from horror and heroes, to mythology and manga.

Having swapped Norfolk for Somerset, when she’s not reading she’ll be out hiking, practising yoga or indoors cooking up a feast and playing video games.

Ruth Kenyon
Publicity & Marketing Officer

Ruth has always had her nose stuck in a book and, whilst growing up on a farm in Northern Ireland, she was most likely to be found up a tree devouring every YA fantasy novel she could get her hands on. Now she reads anything and everything, from Elif Shafak to Jane Austen, but she still holds a special place in her heart for everything YA.

After moving to Cardiff to study Journalism, Media and English Literature, which allowed her to combine her love for all things bookish with her passion for creative media, Ruth then found her natural home as Publicity and Marketing Officer here at Chicken House.