What is Creative Roots Studio?
Creative Roots Studio is a boutique literary agency, innovative creative studio and coaching hub that was founded by Rachael Davis-Featherstone and Fiz Osborne in 2024 as a way to work closely and dynamically with publishing houses, spearhead the creation of a wide range of brilliant children's books and help build sustainable careers for children's book creators.
Who is Fiz Osborne?
Fiz Osborne is an agent, award-winning author, editor and former-Publisher with over 20 years of publishing experience.
Fiz is a highly creative and extremely well-connected children's book specialist with a proven track record in spotting bestsellers, IP creation, list strategy, team management, negotiation and talent development.
If you would like to speak to Fiz about working with one of her authors, or about her own authored works, you can do that here.
Some of Fiz's career highlights include:
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Building a strategic, profitable and child-friendly picture book list while working as picture book Publisher at Scholastic UK, while leading a team of editors and designers to creatively publish award-winning books that sold across multiple retail channels, including New York Times bestseller, The Leaf Thief.
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Acquiring and/or commissioning some of the very best names in the picture book business, including Alice Hemming, Nicola Slater, Michelle Robinson, Fiona Lumbers, David Litchfield, Smriti Halls, Lucy Fleming, Tim Budgen, Mike Byrne, Mark Sperring, Lucy Rowland and Katy Halford.
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Developing and selling a high volume of book concepts across picture books, young fiction and middle grade.
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Writing engaging, child-friendly novelty books, picture books, non-fiction and fiction, such as Dizzy Dinosaurs (2027), Rocking Reindeer (2026), Hello Unicorns (2026) and Hello Dinosaurs (2026).
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Writing quality-commercial, accessible, award-winning children's books under her pen name Emma Adams, such as Little Myths: Persephone (2026), Our Wartime Street (2025), Try (2024) and The Great Fire of London (2016).
WHO IS Rachael
Davis-Featherstone?
Rachael Davis-Featherstone is an agent, enterprising board member and multi-award-nominated author with 15 years of publishing experience. She is recognised by the publishing industry as a champion of diversity in literature and holds a PhD in authentic representation of the mixed-raced identity in children’s literature from Bath Spa University.
If you would like to speak to Rachael about working with one of her authors, or about her own authored works, you can do that here.
Some of Rachael’s career highlights include:
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Selected as a Bookseller Rising Star, class of 2025.
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Publishing over 30 books, spanning picture books to adult novels and non-fiction, including her debut YA, Oxford Blood (2025), which sold at auction to Walker Books and Macmillan US.
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Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize; longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards and the Inclusive Books for Children Awards. Twice featured in The Guardian’s ‘best new picture books and novels’ and three times Editor’s Choice in The Bookseller.
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In 2021 and 2025, judge for the Jericho Prize, a prize created to amplify new Black-British writers.
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In 2026, judge for the Ruth Rendell Prize.
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Appointed as a Non-Executive Director for ALCS and CLA, where Rachael combines her background in analytics and strategy with creativity to help hold leaders to account and champion rights for creatives.
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Consulting for leading financial services firms, designing and delivering technical and professional skills training and creating innovative learning solutions.
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Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University, supporting students with their academic writing.