Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as ‘Plum’) wrote more than ninety novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler’s Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for ‘having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine’s Day.

Michael Bond was born in Newbury, Berkshire on 13 January 1926 and educated at Presentation College, Reading.

He served in the Royal Air Force and the British Army before working as a cameraman for BBC TV for 19 years.

In 2015, Michael was awarded a CBE for his services to children's literature, to add to the OBE he received in 1997.

Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty crime novels and short story collections, most of which feature DCI Sloan. She holds an honorary MA from the University of Kent and has been awarded an MBE. She lives near Canterbury.

Walter Mosley is one of America's best loved authors.

He is the author of the internationally bestselling Easy Rawlins series, and his novels include Devil in a Blue Dress, which was made into the acclaimed film of the same name starring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.

His books have been translated into 23 languages and have sold more than 3.5 million copies to date. He lives in New York City.

Herbert George "H. G." Wells (September 21, 1866-August 13, 1946) was an English author, best known for his work in the "speculative fiction" genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics, and social commentary.

Wells is sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction," along with Jules Verne. The War of the Worlds was written in the age of British colonialism, and Wells came up with the idea for the story while he and his brother were imagining what might happen if someone came to colonize England the way England had other countries.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Charles and Caroline Todd are a mother-and-son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States.

Together, they have written nearly thirty mysteries, including the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford series.

James Lee Burke is the author of many previous novels, several featuring Detective Dave Robicheaux.

He won the EDGAR AWARD in 1998 for Cimarron Rose, while Black Cherry Blues won the EDGAR in 1990 and Sunset Limited was awarded the CWA Gold Dagger in 1998.

He lives with his wife, Pearl, in Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana.

Laura Benedict is the Edgar- and ITW Thriller Award- nominated author of eight novels of mystery and suspense, including The Stranger Inside, and the Bliss House novels. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and numerous anthologies. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, she lives with her family in Southern Illinois, surrounded by bobcats, coyotes, and other predators.

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story The Lottery, which was published in 1949. Her novels - which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House - are characterised by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult.

 Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965.

Ruth Ware is an international number one bestseller. Her psychological thrillers, In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Lying Game were smash hits and have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the Sunday Times and New York Times. Her books are published in more than 40 languages. Ruth lives near Brighton with her family.

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program.

Ray Bradbury has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old.

Among his many famous works are ‘Fahrenheit 451’, ‘The Illustrated Man’ and ‘The Martian Chronicles’.