Georgia Byng


Georgia Byng is a British children's writer, illustrator, actress and film producer.

Early life

Georgia Byng was born on 6 September 1965, in London, England. She grew up in a village, Abbots Worthy near City of Winchester in Hampshire. She has three brothers and one sister. She is the elder daughter and second child of Thomas Edmund Byng, the eighth Earl of Strafford and his first wife, Jennifer May (daughter of Irish politician William Morrison May. Byng is the elder sister of Jamie Byng, publisher of Canongate Books. Through her late stepfather, Sir Christopher Bland, Byng is the half-sister of Archie Bland, Guardian writer and sub editor.

Education

Byng was educated at Princess Mead School, Winchester, Nethercliffe School, Winchester then from 12 years old at Westonbirt School, an independent boarding school for girls in Gloucestershire. She went to Peter Symonds, a sixth form college in Winchester. From 1984 - 1987 she attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, a constituent college of the University of London in central London.

Career

Acting

Byng worked as an actress from 1989 to 1990, appearing in the television series Screen Two, Dealers, and Capstick's Law.

Writing and illustration

While pursuing her acting career, Byng began writing comic strips, and illustrating. After her initial success in this field, she gave up acting to write full-time. Her first published book was a comic strip story, The Sock Monsters. Byng's best-known work is Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism, a book about a girl who finds a book about hypnotism and learns how to hypnotise people. In later books, Molly learns to use other powers such as stopping time, travelling through time, reading minds, and morphing into other forms. The sixth book in the Molly Moon series was released in 2012. Byng co-wrote the screenplay for Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism, the movie of her first book. Byng is with Caradoc King at London agency, United Agents.

Production

In 2015, Byng was the producer for Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism, the film adaptation of her book.

Personal life

Byng married Daniel Chadwick in 1990; they divorced in 1995. They have a daughter, Tiger, from this marriage, born 1990.Byng married artist, Marc Quinn. They divorced in 2014. She has two more children with him; sons, Lucas and Sky.
In March 2019 she became engaged to the bass player Guy Pratt.

Publications

Selected works include:
  1. Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism
  2. Molly Moon Stops the World
  3. Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time-Travel Adventure
  4. Molly Moon, Micky Minus and the Mind Machine
  5. Molly Moon and the Morphing Mystery
  6. Molly Moon and the Monster Music