Deborah Moggach is the author of many successful novels including Tulip Fever and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was made into a top-grossing film starring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith.

Her screenplays include the film of Pride and Prejudice, which was nominated for a BAFTA. She lives in Wales.

Kathy Lette is a celebrated and outspoken comic writer who has an inimitable take on serious current issues.

She is one of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism, paving the way for Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham. She first achieved succès de scandale as a teenager with the novel Puberty Blues, which was made into a major film and a TV mini-series.

After several years as a newspaper columnist and TV sitcom writer in America and Australia, she’s written 11 international bestsellers in her characteristic witty voice, including Mad Cows, How to Kill Your Husband - and Other Handy Household Hints (staged by the Victorian opera) and The Boy Who Fell to Earth.

She is known for her regular appearances on BBC and Sky news programmes. She is an ambassador for Women and Children First, Plan International, the White Ribbon Alliance and the NAS. Kathy Lette lives in London with her husband, her autistic son (the actor Julius Robertson) and daughter, and can often be found at The Savoy drinking a cocktail named after her.

Kathy is an autodidact (a word she taught herself), but has honorary doctorates from Southampton Solent and Wollongong Universities and a Senior Fellowship from Regent’s College.

Tim Butcher is a best-selling author who blends travel with history. His first book, Blood River, was a number one bestseller, a Richard & Judy Book Club selection and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, while his next, Chasing the Devil, was longlisted for the George Orwell Prize.

A journalist with the Daily Telegraph from 1990 to 2009, in 2010 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Northampton for services to writing. Born in Great Britain, he is based in Cape Town with his family.

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.

Marie Phillips was born in London. After working in television documentaries and as an independent bookseller, she published her first novel, Gods Behaving Badly, in 2007. It became an international bestseller, was translated into over twenty languages, and was made into a film starring Sharon Stone and Christopher Walken. Her second novel, The Table of Less Valued Knights, was longlisted for the 2015 Baileys Prize for Fiction. Her third, Oh, I Do Like To Be..., was published in January 2019. With Robert Hudson, she wrote the BBC Radio 4 series Warhorses of Letters, which starred Stephen Fry and Daniel Rigby, and Some Hay in a Manger, starring Tamsin Greig and Joel Fry. As part of a shadowy cabal of like-minded women, she published the erotic spoof Fifty Shelves of Grey, under the name Vanessa Parody. She is currently studying storytelling at the Mezrab Storytelling School in Amsterdam.

Xiaolu Guo was born in south China. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before she moved to London in 2002.

The English translation of Village of Stone was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Her first novel written in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, published in 2008, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Her most recent novel, I Am China, was longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. In 2013 she was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Xiaolu has also directed several award-winning films including She, A Chinese and a documentary about London, Late at Night. She lives in London and Berlin.

Irvine Welsh is the author of ten previous novels and four books of shorter fiction.

He currently lives in Chicago.