Richard Masson (1943-2013) was born in East London into a Huguenot family during the Second World War.  At 16 he went to sea and after a four-year apprenticeship he became a ship’s officer.  He began to write as a way of passing the time on his long voyages, starting with short stories which quickly led on to novel writing.  Richard was one of the winners of SCBWI’s prestigious Undiscovered Voices competition in 2011, and his YA novel Boonie was published by Hot Key Books in 2013.