John Dougherty is a Northern Irish children's writer, born in the town of Larne in 1964. He now lives in Gloucestershire. He worked as a primary school teacher in London during the 1990s and early 2000s; during this period, he began to write stories for children. His first book was published in 2004 and he left teaching the same year to concentrate on his writing career. From November 2013 – 2015, he was chair of the Children's Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG), a sub-group of the UK's Society of Authors.