Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three novels and several stage plays and radio dramas. Awards she has received include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, and the BBC Stewart Parker Award.

Her most recent novel, All the Beggars Riding, was chosen for Belfast's One City One Book campaign in 2013 and shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was followed by her acclaimed debut collection of short stories, Multitudes, 2016.

Martin Edwards was born in Knutsford, Cheshire. He read law at Balliol College, Oxford and trained as a solicitor. He is the author of the legal mysteries featuring Harry Devlin adnd writes the popular crime series set in the Lake District. He is also a critic and has edited various short story collections and writes The Martin Edward's Column on BookNoir.

Luan Goldie is a primary school teacher, and formerly a business journalist. She has written several short stories and is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2017 for her short story 'Two Steak Bakes and Two Chelsea Buns'. She was also shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize in 2018 and the Grazia Orange First Chapter competition in 2012, and was chosen to take part in the Almasi League, an Arts Council-funded mentorship programme for emerging writers of colour.

Nikita Lalwani was born in Kota, Rajasthan in 1973 and raised in Cardiff. After several years of directing factual television and documentaries at the BBC, she has returned to writing fiction. She lives in London.

Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels: In the City by the Sea; Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; Broken Verses; Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction) and, most recently, A God in Every Stone, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.

Eley Williams lectures at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her short story collection Attrib. and Other Stories won the James Tait Black Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.