James Clavell was an Australian-born, British-raised and educated, naturalized-American writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television adaptations. Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958), based on the short story by George Langelaan, and The Great Escape (1963), based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill. He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love, for which he also wrote the script.
William Goldman was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. Among other accolades, Goldman won two Academy Awards in both writing categories—once for Best Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and once for Best Adapted Screenplay for All the President's Men (1976).
David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated: "In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world."
William Andrew Murray Boyd is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.
Alexandra Elizabeth Kingston is an English actress. Active from the early 1980s, Kingston became noted for her television work in both Britain and the US in the 1990s, including her regular role as Dr. Elizabeth Corday in the NBC medical drama ER (1997–2004) and her title role in the ITV miniseries The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996), which earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.
Dubravka Ugrešić was a Yugoslav-Croatian and Dutch writer. A graduate of University of Zagreb, she was based in Amsterdam from 1996 and continued to identify as a Yugoslav writer.
Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Donna Louise Tartt is an American novelist and essayist. Her novels are The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013), which has been adapted into a 2019 film of the same name She was included in Time magazine's 2014 "100 Most Influential People" list.
Dorling Kindersley Limited is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel, history, geography, science, space, nature, sports, gardening, cookery, parenting and many others. The worldwide CEO of DK is Paul Kelly. DK has offices in New York, Melbourne, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto, Madrid, Beijing, and Jiangmen. DK works with licensing partners such as Disney, LEGO, DC Comics, the Royal Horticultural Society, MasterChef, and the Smithsonian Institution. DK has commissioned authors such as Mary Berry, Monty Don, Robert Winston, Huw Richards, and Steve Mould for a range of books.
Tracy Rose Chevalier is an American-British novelist. She is best known for her second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was adapted as a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth.
Elizabeth Jane Howard, was an English novelist. She wrote 12 novels including the best-selling series TheCazalet Chronicle.
Karren Rita Brady, Baroness Brady, is a British business executive and television personality. She is a former managing director of Birmingham City F.C. and current vice-chairman of West Ham United F.C., and an aide to Alan Sugar on The Apprentice. She is a Conservative member of the House of Lords and has been a Small Business Ambassador for the UK government.
Tess Gerritsen is the pseudonym of Terry Gerritsen, an American novelist and retired general physician.
Joan Brady was an American-British writer. She was the first woman and American to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for her novel Theory of War.
Daisy Georgia Goodwin is an English screenwriter, TV producer and novelist. She is the creator of the ITV/ PBS show Victoria which has sold to 146 countries. She has written four novels: My Last Duchess or The American Heiress, The Fortune Hunter, Victoria, and “Diva”; all of which have been New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than ten languages. She has also curated eight poetry anthologies, including 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life. Goodwin spent twenty-five years working as a TV producer, where she created and produced shows like Grand Designs which has now been on Channel 4 for more than twenty years, and Escape to the Country which is in its twentieth year on BBC2.
Millroy the Magician is a novel by American writer Paul Theroux. It was published in 1993 by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and by Random House the following year in the US, where it was chosen as one of the New York Times notable books of the year. The novel has been identified as one of the best of the 1990s. It is a satire of American consumer culture and love of fast food, and contains elements of parable and magic realism.
Susanna Mary Clarke is an English author known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.
Jennifer Maidman is a British musician, singer, producer, songwriter, actress and author who has collaborated extensively with many internationally well known groups and artists. Her work appears on hundreds of recordings from 1976 onwards and she has received numerous awards, including a platinum award from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for the album 'Hormonally Yours', on which she worked as part of the band Shakespears Sister. She was a core member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra from 1984 until 2007. She is best known as a bass guitarist but also sings and plays guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion, ukulele, cuatro and Chapman Stick. In June 2016, her website announced that she was working on a solo album in Woodstock, New York featuring amongst others, Jerry Marotta, Annie Whitehead, and David Torn. The album, entitled 'Dreamland' was released on 1 August 2017 and features Marotta, Torn and Whitehead, with guest contributions from Paul Brady and Robert Wyatt amongst others. Since 2017, she has also been collaborating frequently with New York-based arts cooperative The Secret City. In 2021, she reunited with Joan Armatrading for a live stream concert at the Asylum Chapel in London. In 2022, the concert was broadcast in the UK by the BBC and released as a double album on CD and streaming services.
