Are you curious about the author of The River, Valerie Bloom?

Let us meet her!

• Valerie Bloom was born in Jamaica and came to England in 1979.
• She studied English with African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury.
• Her books include the Jamaican poetry collections Touch mi! Tell mi! (1983); and Duppy Jamboree and other Jamaican Poems (1991); Hot Like Fire (2002), a collection of poems in English and Jamaican patois; and more recently, Whoop an'Shout! (2003).
• She has edited several collections of poetry such as On a Camel to the Moon and other poems about journeys (2001) and One River, Many Creeks: poems from all around the world (2003). Her children's novel, Surprising Joy, was published in 2003.

• She has been awarded an Honorary Masters Degree from the University of Kent, and lives in Kent. Her latest books are The Tribe and A Soh Life Goh, both published in 2008.