James Oseland was the editor-in-chief of Saveur from 2005 to 2014. He was the founding editor-in-chief of Rodale's Organic Life. He is also a veteran of Bravo TV's Top Chef Masters.

He is the author of Cradle of Flavor, named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times and by the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and Jimmy Neurosis, a memoir of his days in the 1970s punk scene.

Naomi Duguid is a writer, photographer, teacher, cook, and world traveler. Her most recent cookbook, Burma, brought news of a long-forgotten part of the world and was winner of the 2013 IACP Cookbook Award for Culinary Travel and the Taste Canada Food Writing Award.

Her previous award-winning titles, co-authored with Jeffrey Alford, include Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas, their first book, which won a James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year; Seductions of Rice; Hot Sour Salty Sweet, also a James Beard Cookbook of the Year; Mangoes & Curry Leaves; and Beyond the Great Wall.

Duguid’s articles and photographs appear regularly in Lucky Peach, Food & Wine, and other publications. She is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at food conferences. She is the host of Toronto’s Food on Film series and has a strong online presence (Twitter and Facebook). Her stock photo agency, Asia Access, is based in Toronto, where she lives when she is not on the road.

Fuchsia Dunlop was the first Westerner to train at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, and has been travelling around China and collecting recipes for more than two decades.

She has written for publications including the Financial Times, the New Yorker and the Observer, and has appeared on Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word and The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4.

Her previous books include the award-winning Sichuan Cookery, Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking and Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China.

She speaks, reads and writes Chinese, and she lives in East London.

Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea. He is the author of Submarine, which has been translated into fifteen languages and made into an acclaimed film directed by Richard Ayoade, and Wild Abandon, which won the 2012 Encore Award.

A collection of his poetry is published as Faber New Poets 5. Joe Dunthorne lives in London and The Adulterants is his third novel.