Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his debut novel Lord of the Flies (1954), he published another twelve volumes of fiction in his lifetime. In 1980, he was awarded the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage, the first novel in what became his sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947). He came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.
John Andrew Sutherland is a British academic, newspaper columnist and author. He is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London.
The New York Trilogy is a series of novels by American writer Paul Auster. Originally published sequentially as City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986), it has since been collected into a single volume. The Trilogy is a postmodern interpretation of detective and mystery fiction, exploring various philosophical themes.
Simon James Holliday Gray was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to five published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries.
Michael Dibdin was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy.
Louise Doughty is an English novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her bestselling novels, including Apple Tree Yard. She has also worked as a cultural critic for newspapers and magazines. Her weekly column for The Daily Telegraph was published as A Novel in a Year in 2007. Doughty was the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read in 1998 to 2001.
Freeman Wills Crofts FRSA was an Irish engineer and mystery author, remembered best for the character of Inspector Joseph French.
Jo Shapcott FRSL is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Award.
Michael Roy Kitchen is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle in the ITV drama Foyle's War, which comprised eight series between 2002 and 2015. He also played the role of Bill Tanner in two James Bond films opposite Pierce Brosnan, and that of John Farrow in BBC Four's comedy series Brian Pern.
Adam Dalgliesh is a fictional character who is the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James; the first being James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face. He also appears in the two novels featuring James's other detective, Cordelia Gray.
Joan Alison Smith is an English journalist, novelist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN and was the Executive Director of Hacked Off.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Tobias Jones is a British author, journalist, teacher and community-builder. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, and then worked at the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday. He has written various works of fiction and non-fiction, and appears regularly on British and Italian TV and Radio. He lives in Parma in Italy.
Jason Webster is an Anglo-American author who writes on Spain. He was born in California to British parents in 1970. He has spent most of his adult life in Spain, having settled in Valencia with his Spanish wife, actress and dancer Salud Botella. He is a director of The Scheherazade Foundation.
Lavinia Elaine Greenlaw is an English poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde. Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Hugh Walters was a British writer of juvenile science fiction novels from Bradley in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom.
Lucy Wadham is a British novelist, poet, screenwriter and writer of crime fiction. Her most widely reviewed work is her autobiographical account of her life in France, The Secret Life of France (2009).
Iona McGregor was a Scottish author and teacher best known for her written work and her contributions to gay rights activism, especially from the 1970's onwards. She worked with the Scottish Minorities Group in Glasgow to help create safe social spaces for women, and to develop the Edinburgh Befriending Service for people who were members of the LGBT community. In later life, she was an active member of Edinburgh U3A. She was a full time teacher, and so had to keep her activism work and personal life a secret in order to avoid losing her job. She was a member of the Scottish PEN and wrote novels and non-fiction, especially about Scottish history.
Fiona Maddocks is a British music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "one of the UK's leading writers and commentators on classical music", Maddocks has been chief music critic of The Observer since 2010. She held a central role in founding three media companies: BBC Music Magazine, Channel 4 and The Independent.
