Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge.

After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children's critic for the Independent on Sunday and The Times. She still reviews children's books for the New Statesman, and literary fiction for the Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist.

Her novel Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, and The Lie of the Land was chosen as a book of the year by the Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Sunday Times and Irish Times. Her latest novel, The Golden Rule was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021.

Tracy Chevalier is best known for her historical novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring and, most recently, At the Edge of the Orchard. She is also editor of Reader I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has honorary doctorates from her alma maters Oberlin College and the University of East Anglia. She lives with her family in London.

James Robertson was born in Scotland in 1958. He is the author of The Testament of Gideon Mack and And the Land Lay Still, among other novels, and has won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award twice. The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.

Robertson is also the author of four short-story collections, most recently 365: Stories, as well as poetry collections and children's books in both English and Scots.

He runs the independent publishing house Kettillonia and also co-founded the Scots language children's books imprint Itchy Coo.

Maggie O'Farrell is the author of seven novels, After You'd Gone, My Lover's Lover, The Distance Between Us, which won a Somerset Maugham Award.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The Hand that First Held Mine, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, Instructions for a Heatwave, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award, and This must be the Place, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award.

She lives in Edinburgh.

Susan Elderkin was listed by Granta as one of the 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. She is also a travel writer, journalist and reviewer.

Together, with Ella Berthoud, she holds sell-out bibliotherapy sessions and retreats in the UK and has a regular slot with The School of Life.

Richard Mabey is the author of some forty books, including the bestselling Flora Britannica, Weeds and Nature Cure, which was short-listed for the Whitbread, Ondaatje and Ackerley awards.

His biography Gilbert White won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 1986. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC radio, writes regularly for the Guardian, New Statesman and Granta, and has contributed a personal column to BBC Wildlife for the past 25 years. He is Patron of the John Clare Society, and Vice-President of the Open Spaces Society. He lives in Norfolk.

Born in Skipton, Yorkshire, Blake Morrison is the author of bestselling memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (winner of the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography and the Esquire Award for Non-Fiction) and Things My Mother Never Told Me ('the must read book of the year' - Tony Parsons),. He also wrote a study of the disturbing child murder, the Bulger case, As If. His acclaimed recent novels include South of the River and The Last Weekend. He is also a poet, critic, journalist and librettist. He lives in South London.

Philip Hensher is a columnist for the Independent, arts critic for the Spectator and a Granta Best of Young British novelist. He has written six novels, including The Mulberry Empire and the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, and one collection of short stories. He lives in South London.

Salley Vickers is the author of several bestselling novels including Miss Garnet's Angel, Mr Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Dancing Backwards.

Her most recent books are The Cleaner of Chartres (Viking 2012) and short story collection The Boy Who Could See Death (Viking 2015). She has worked as a cleaner, a dancer, a teacher of children with special needs, a university lecturer and a psychoanalyst. She now writes and lectures full time.

Tahmima Anam is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer and Harvard-educated anthropologist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta and the Guardian.

She is also an executive director of a music technology startup with offices in New York and London.

Joanne Harris was born of a French mother and English father, and spent most of her childhood holidays on the island of Noirmoutier, in southern Brittany and Nerac, in Gascony, where she was immersed in French village life, folklore and tradition.

She is the author of two previous novels, Sleep, Pale Sister, and The Evil Seed. Her fourth, Blackberry Wine was published in March 2000 to great critical acclaim. Joanne lives in Yorkshire with her husband and young daughter.

Kate Mosse is an international bestselling author with sales of more than five million copies in 38 languages. Her fiction includes the novels Labyrinth (2005), Sepulchre (2007), The Winter Ghosts (2009), Citadel (2012), and The Taxidermist's Daughter (2014), as well as an acclaimed collection of short stories, The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales (2013).

Her next book, The Burning Chambers, will be out in May 2018. Kate is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of the Women's Prize for Fiction and in June 2013, was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.

Philippa Gregory is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognised authority on women’s history.

Her Cousins’ War novels, reaching their dramatic conclusion with The King’s Curse, were the basis for the highly successful BBC series, The White Queen. Philippa’s other great interest is the charity that she founded over twenty years ago: Gardens for the Gambia. She has raised funds and paid for over 200 wells in the primary schools of this poor African country.

Philippa graduated from the University of Sussex and holds a PhD and Alumna of the Year 2009 at Edinburgh University. In 2016, she received the Harrogate Festival Award for Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction. Philippa lives with her family on a small farm in Yorkshire.