Meet the author

K. O'Neill.

Writer & illustrator · New Zealand · b. 1986

K. O'Neill: New Zealand cartoonist behind the Tea Dragon Society trilogy and The Moth Keeper — warm, queer-inclusive, cosy-fantasy middle-grade graphic novels for ages 8–12.

K. O'Neill is a New Zealand cartoonist born in 1986, best known for the Tea Dragon Society graphic-novel trilogy (The Tea Dragon Society, The Tea Dragon Festival, The Tea Dragon Tapestry) and The Moth Keeper, plus the picture book Princess Princess Ever After and the early graphic novel Aquicorn Cove. O'Neill's work is unmistakably warm, queer-inclusive and magical-realist, set in fantasy worlds where the central drama is relationship, kindness and slow growth rather than peril. The Tea Dragon books are a fixture of the cosy-fantasy middle-grade graphic-novel shelf and have won Eisner Awards. A core contemporary graphic-novel author for ages 8–12, particularly important to LGBTQ-inclusive shelves.