Selma Noort was born and grew up in Leiden. In The Netherlands she is already a well-known writer of an impressive amount of children's books (for ages 3-16), among which many awarded and translated titles.

Selma: "I had just turned nineteen when I finished my education for kindergarten teacher. At the time my art-teacher advised me to go to art-school and my Dutch teacher advised me to go on writing. I wanted to leave home and be independent. I reasoned: writing was within reach. I had a pen, I had paper, and most of all, my first children's book was already to be published. And there was something else of importance: I had much to say and writing was a certain way to be heard. But most of all, art-school didn't seem an option for a working class girl like myself. I had no idea how to apply to such a school, and no idea how to finance it, so I decided that writing was the thing to do."

Selma became a writer. But her fascination for drawing and painting grew. More and more, painters became prominent characters in her books. After 30 years of writing, when she even started to dream about painting, she decided to buy some brushes and give it a try...

Her artwork can be described as her writing: compassionate, colourful and ironic, sometimes nearly tragic with a touch of absurdism.