John McCarthy has worked as a journalist since leaving university. His life was infamously changed when, on his first foreign assignment, he was abducted in Beirut by Islamic Fundamentalists and held hostage for 1,943 days.
Subsequently, this experience was explored in the film Blind Flight and in John’s best-selling book Some Other Rainbow (co-written with Jill Morrell). His other books are (with Brian Keenan) Between Extremes, A Ghost Upon Your Path: An Irish Journey and You Can't Hide the Sun: A Journey through Palestine.
Alongside his writing John has pursued a broadcast career, with many of his programmes reflecting his knowledge of and interest in travel, religion and history. On television he’s worked for the BBC, ITV, Sky Arts and Al Jazeera. In radio he has presented on the BBC World Service and Radio 2. On Radio 4 he is a regular presenter of Something Understood and contributor to Saturday Live.
He is Patron of the charity Freedom From Torture, and has been awarded an Honorary D.Litt from Hull and the CBE.
Alison Bonomi (pen name Emma Orchard) was born in Salford and studied English Literature at the universities of Edinburgh and York. She worked as a copy-editor at Mills and Boon and in News and Current Affairs at the BBC, before co-founding LBA Bo...
Andrew Hunter Murray is an author, comedian and broadcaster. His Sunday Times-bestselling novel The Last Day was published in 2020 and was one of the top ten fiction debuts of that year; his second novel, The Sanctuary, was pu...
Antony Beevor’s books include Crete (Runciman Prize) Stalingrad (Samuel Johnson, Wolfson and Hawthornden Prizes); Berlin; The Battle for Spain (Premio La Vanguardia); D-Day (RUSI Westminster Medal); The Second...
Artemis Cooper's books include Cairo in the War, 1939-1945; Writing at the Kitchen Table, the Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David; Patrick Leigh Fermor, an Adventure; Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence<...
Chris Clark is a senior figure in the business world and has spent various stages of his career in Advertising, with Saatchi & Saatchi, and in Financial Services with HSBC and Aviva. His specialisations in marketing and brand strategy have giv...
Clare Chambers began her career as a secretary at the publisher André Deutsch in 1990 when Diana Athill was still at the helm. They not only published her first novel but made her type her own contract. She has written eight further books includin...
Clare Clark is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels. Her first, The Great Stink, was longlisted for the Orange (now Women’s) Prize and shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger. Her third novel, Savage Lands, was also longliste...
Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of I Let You Go, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It also won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2016.
Bot...
Douglas Stuart is known for his first novel Shuggie Bain, written largely in secret over 10 years and which won the Man Booker Prize in 2020. His second novel Young Mungo was a number one bestseller. Both novels are being adapted for...
Greg is a ‘writer and encourager of writers’. He has worked for many years as editor, dramaturge and script consultant in theatre, film and novels. As well as running writing workshops for Guardian Masterclasses, Southbank Centre and Chichester Fe...
Hashi Mohamed is a barrister at Landmark Chambers and a Broadcaster and a published author.
In 2010, he joined The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and completed his barrister training in London in 2012. At No5 Cham...
Kate Mosse is a number one international bestselling novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer. She is the author of six novels and short story collections including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and ...
Kavita Puri is an award-winning journalist, executive producer and broadcaster. She presents documentaries on Radio 4 and the World Service including The Inquiry. She devised, wrote and presented the landmark three-part series Partition ...
After studying English Literature at UCL and at Dartmouth College in the USA, Luigi became an editor at children’s publishers Macdonald Futura where he worked on the Enid Blyton estate. While there, he created one of the first Young Adult Children...
Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National Theatre and RDC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing– and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV s...
Nikesh Shukla is a novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of Coconut Unlimited (shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award), Meatspace and the critically acclaimed The One Who Wrote Destiny. Nikesh is the editor of the b...
Paterson Joseph is a beloved British actor and writer. Recently seen on Vigil and Noughts and Crosses, he has also starred in Peep Show and Law & Order UK and he plays Arthur Slugworth in the forthcoming Wonka Literature
Peter Kemp is the Sunday Times’s Chief Fiction Reviewer and has been writing for the paper for forty years. He was its Fiction Editor from 1994 to 2010 and was a theatre reviewer for the Independent from its launch in 1987 to 1991. ...
One of the UK’s most accomplished and respected novelists, Val McDermid has sold over 18.5 million books to date across the globe and is translated into more than 40 languages. She is perhaps best-known for her Wire in the Blood series, fea...
Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered, is an author, academic, host, creative producer, and writer. She won the Northern Writers Award for fiction in 2017, while Remembered was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019)...
Award-winning author of 22 bestselling novels, including Sunday Times bestsellers Both Of You and One Last Secret.
British author, Alexander McCall Smith, has written more than 100 books and is one of the world’s best-loved writers. A writer of novels, short stories (including stories set in Australia), operatic libretti and poetry, he is perhaps best known fo...
Dr Anita Heiss is one of Australia’s most prolific authors. Her writing spans many genres, including non-fiction, historical fiction, children’s novels, poetry, social commentary, and travel articles. She is a regular at writers' festivals and tra...
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS. His latest book, The Spy and The Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War,Literature
British writer Bernardine Evaristo was the joint winner of the Booker Prize 2019 with her eighth book, Girl, Woman, Other, making her the first black woman to win the prize in its 51-year history. It was also a Barack Obama ‘Top 19 Book of ...
Cassie Hamer has a professional background in journalism and PR, but now much prefers the world of fiction over fact. She is the author of three novels, including the Australian bestseller After the Party and her stories focus on ordin...
Charles Cumming was born in Scotland in 1971. He was educated at Eton and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1994 with First Class Honours in English Literature. In 1995, he was approached by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). ...
Chris Brookmyre worked as a sub-editor for Screen International and The Scotsman before becoming a full time novelist. He is the author of twenty-seven crime and science fiction novels, including Black Widow, which won the 2016 McIlvanney P...
British writer, editor and translator with over 100 books to his name. Along with award-winning translations of The Book of Chameleons and A General Theory of Oblivion, both by José Eduardo Agualusa, Daniel has also produced several non-fiction wo...
Denise Mina is the author of the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series and the Alex Morrow series. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice and was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame i...
Ed Balls is a broadcaster, writer and economist. He is Professor of Political Economy at King’s College, London and a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, co-Chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation and Vice-President and former Cha...
Elizabeth Stanley is an experienced, award-winning writer/illustrator who has a background of English teaching and Educational Psychology. For five years she was the Director of the Dromkeen Children’s Literature Museum in Victoria and subsequentl...
Ella talks regularly at festivals and events, prescribing literature to whoever loves reading and needs some literary love. Ella set up the bibliotherapy service at The School of Life in Bloomsbury with co-founder Susan Elderkin in 2008. They then...
Fiona McIntosh is one of Australia’s favourite storytellers across various genres. She is author of the hit Jack Hawksworth crime series, the fourth instalment of which (Dead Tide) ranked #1 bestselling Australian fiction title in its first week o...
Married for 35 years, Graeme and Anne have co-authored novels such as Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Onward, and The Glass House. Graeme has also written the hugely successful, The Rosie Project series, while Anne has authored five crime novels, inc...
Ian Rankin is the multi-million copy worldwide bestseller of over thirty novels and creator of John Rebus. His books have been translated into thirty-six languages and have been adapted for radio, stage and screen.
Rankin is the recipient o...
A past Fellow of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Jamie Susskind studied history and politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating first in his year before turning to law.
Jamie's award-winning bestseller Fu...
Jane Smiley is the author of many novels including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden Age, the concluding volume of 'The Last Hundred Years' trilogy. She is also the author of five works...
Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French writer, whose books include fourteen novels, two cookbooks and many short stories. Her work is extremely diverse, covering aspects of magic realism, suspense, historical fiction, mythology and fantasy.
In 20...
JoJo Moyes is one of the most successful novelist of the 21st century – her bestselling novels have been translated into 46 languages and sold over 38 million copies worldwide. Her bestselling books include The Giver o...
A widely published journalist, Lionel Shriver is the author of fourteen novels, including the New York Times bestsellers So Much for That (a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award and the Wellcome Trust Book Prize) and The Post-Birthd...
Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are The Dust That Falls From Dreams, Birds Without Wings and A Partisa...
Writer Lynne Truss is best known for her bestselling books, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation – which has sold over three million copies worldwide – and Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World T...
Maggie O'Farrell is the award-winning author of the Sunday Times no. 1 bestselling memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, and eight novels: After You’d Gone, My Lover’s Lover, The Distance Between Us, which won a Somerset Maugham Aw...
Marisa Haetzman worked as a consultant anaesthetist, her career taking her to London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow before stepping down to study for a Masters degree in the History of Medicine. Her dissertation research into the early use of ch...
Mark Billingham is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and popular crime writers. His series of novels featuring DI Tom Thorne has twice won him the Crime Novel of the Year Award.
His debut novel Sleepyhead was published in 2001 and was ...
Mary Beard is one of Britain's best-known Classicists - Professor at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Newnham College. She has written numerous books including the Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, the best-s...
Mick Herron's seven Slough House novels have been shortlisted for eight CWA Daggers, winning twice, and shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year four times. The first, Slow Horses, was picked as one of the best twe...
Mike Gayle was born and raised in Birmingham. After graduating from Salford University with a degree in Sociology, he moved to London to pursue a career in journalism and worked as a features editor and agony uncle. He has writted for a variety of...
Hosting the literature voyage will be 16-time Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Nick McKenzie. Known for his work exposing corruption and criminal wrongdoing, McKenzie will engage guests with facilitating insightful talks and a specia...
In 2015 Okechukwu Nzelu was the recipient of a Northern Writers' Award from New Writing North. His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books), won a Betty Trask Award; it was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott P...
Pam Ayres has been a writer, broadcaster, and entertainer for over 40 years, and is one of the few authors who has had books in the Sunday Times bestseller charts in almost every decade since the 1970s.
Pam has appeared three times for HM ...
Pamela Paul is the editor of the Book Review and oversees all books coverage at The New York Times where she is also the host of the weekly Book Review podcast. She is the author of seven books, includi...
Patrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight in 1962 where his father was governor of HM Prison Camp Hill. The family shortly afterwards moved to Wandsworth Prison then on to Winchester. There Patrick was a Quirister at the cathedral choir school an...
Paul is an award-winning author whose novels are set in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has won the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award, is a three-time recipient of the Ngaio Marsh Award, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar,...
Paul Mendez was born and raised in the West Midlands. He now lives in London and is studying for an MA in Black British Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has been a performing member of two theatre companies, and worked as a voice ac...
Author, historian and publisher Penny Legg is a popular public speaker with a wide repertoire of entertaining subjects, ranging from the history of Southampton and British folklore to military history and the Second World War home front.
...
P. J. O’Rourke has written eighteen books on subjects as diverse as politics, cars, etiquette and economics. Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. O'Rourke is also contribut...
Prue Leith has lived a lively life in all respects. She has had successful careers in food; with cookbooks, journalism, the restaurant and catering world, with her chef schools as a TV presenter and Great British Bake Off judge. But she’s also had...
Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop and a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Gar...
Richard Osman is a British television producer and presenter on shows including Pointless and Richard Osman’s House of Games. The Thursday Murder Club is his first and, so far, best novel. It is the fastest-selling adult debut...
Professor of American Literature, Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study and directs the UK’s national festival of the humanities, the Being Human Festival.
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Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi immigrant parents in Wolverhampton in 1976. He entered the education system unable to speak English but, after attending Wolverhampton Grammar School, graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge with a first-cla...
One of Britain’s foremost authors, Sebastian Faulks has written novels ranging from the classic Human Traces (2005) and Birdsong (1993) - consistently vote...
Sharmaine Lovegrove is the Publisher of Dialogue Books, the UK’s only inclusive imprint, part of Little, Brown Book Group and Hachette UK. Dialogue Books is a home for a variety of stories from illuminating voices often missing from the mainstream...
Simon Armitage is the UK Poet Laureate and was Oxford Professor of Poetry (2015-2019). He was appointed Professor of Poetry at Leeds University in 2017. His numerous accolades include an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting in the BAFTA-winning fil...
Author of A Killing in November and The Broken Afternoon, which were both chosen as Sunday Times crime book of the month, respectively.
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Simon Winchester grew up in South-West England and studied geology at Oxford. He is the bestselling author of The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, Krakatoa, The Map That Changed the World, <...
Sue Williams is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author who’s written for all of Australia’s leading newspapers and magazines. Sue spent many years travelling the world solo and then exploring Australia, with books that include Getting...
Victoria Hislop is the bestselling and award-winning author of six books, including The Island, The Return, The Thread, The Sunrise, Cartes Postales from Greece, and a collection of short stories, The Last Dance and Other Stories. He...
