Anne Michaels was born in Toronto in 1958. She was educated at Toronto University where she continues to teach as an adjunct professor of creative writing.

Her first volume of poems, The Weight of Oranges, was published to great acclaim in 1986 when it won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. Fugitive Pieces, her first novel, has been published in over thirty countries and has won many international awards, including both the Orange Prize and the Guardian Fiction Award when it was published in 1997.

Anne Michaels has published two other books of poetry, the award-winning Miner's Pond and Skin Divers. Her latest novel is The Winter Vault.

John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels & stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism.

His first novel, 'A Painter of Our Time', was published in 1958, & since then his books have included the novel 'G.', which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, & he now lives in a small village in the French Alps.