Faiqa Mansab is a Pakistani writer.  She holds an Mphil in English Literature, an MFA in creative writing with a high distinction from Kingston University London and an MA in Gender and Cultural Studies from Birkbeck University London. She has written and continues to write for numerous publications both local and international.

Her debut novel THIS HOUSE OF CLAY AND WATER was published to much critical acclaim by Penguin India in 2017. It was longlisted for Getz Pharma Fiction Prize and the German Consulate Peace Prize at the Karachi Literature Festival 2018. It has since been optioned for screen and been published in Turkish by Dedalus Press. Blackstone Publishing USA released the audio book of This House of Clay and Water in 2022.

Faiqa lives in Lahore with her family.

Rebecca Robinson is a writer and poet, specialising in nature, creativity, and wellbeing. Through her writing, she inspires people to reconnect with nature and reweave a sense of wellbeing and wonder into their everyday life. She is the author of Wildcrafted Words: Nature Poems for the Wheel of the Year and Thrive: A Slow and Mindful Living Journal for the Wild at Heart – A Life Purpose Workbook, Planner, & Daily Diary Inspired by Nature.

You can find Rebecca’s work on her website and on Instagram, @woodland.wordsmith.

Sue Hann is a psychologist and writer. She is fascinated by the stories we tell about ourselves, whether that is in the clinic room, on the page, or on the stage.

Her work was longlisted for the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize 2020 and has featured in literary journals such as Popshot Quarterly and Hinterland, as well as a number of anthologies. She is winner of the Diana Woods Memorial Award 2020.

You can find her on suehannwrites.com and on Instagram @SueHannwrites

Antonia is a writer and editor based in north Essex/Cambridge. With a degree in Modern Languages from Bristol University, and a long-standing career as a book editor, she has a lifelong curiosity for language and words, and a growing fascination in the power of story – the way it shapes our lives and frames our experience.

Terra Electrica: Noora and The Ark is her first novel for children. Born of a fascination with ice and the way it has shaped human and animal life across the globe, it asks questions about knowledge and truth – about the responsibilities that come with scientific discovery and the importance of embracing the traditional wisdom held in our landscape and our communities. It considers how when the last iceberg melts, what we stand to lose may be greater than we realise, and how our hope for the future is in the hands of those who dare to step forward and fight.

Stephen Grant is a philosopher and an award-winning novelist. His first book, A Moment More Sublime, won the silver medal for contemporary fiction at the Independent Publisher Awards in 2015. Spanish Lightwas the Distinguished Favourite in the category of literary fiction at the Independent Press Awards of 2019.  His most recent work, Late, Late in the Eveningwon the bronze medal for European Fiction at the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards, the medal won the year before by the Booker Prize winning novel Shuggie Bain. His philosophical publications have mainly been in the field of Ethics and Philosophy of the Emotions.

His fiction focuses on philosophical and political issues such as what it means to lead a fulfilling life and the role of art in a good life. Each of his books has a philosopher as one of the central characters.

He is a lecturer in philosophy at a college in north London, as well as a trade union activist.

Stephen Grant Writer

Matthew Francis is the author of two previous novels, WHOM and The Book of the Needle, and a collection of short stories, Singing a Man to Death. He has published six collections of poetry with Faber and Faber, most recently Wing. His poetry and fiction has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, the Ted Hughes Award and the Wales Book of the Year Award, and in 2004 he was chosen as one of the Next Generation poets. He is the editor of W.S. Graham’s New Collected Poems, and author of a critical study of Graham, Where the People Are. His latest book is Depersonalization and Creative Writing: Unreal City. He lives in Wales with his wife, Creina, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University.

Neil Taylor originally graduated as an engineer before moving into the software industry. After years of living and travelling abroad he came to rest in the North East of England where he lives with his wife and two boys.

Career and life in general got in the way of writing until he eventually took a sabbatical for several years to learn the craft and make a serious attempt to become a published author. In between writing he now works from home for a cloud-based software and services company.

When not writing or working, any remaining time is usually spent with family, although he sometimes indulges in a spot of art and can often be found cycling up and down the Pennine hills, followed by coffee and cake or a good pub.

Elaine Chiew is the author of The Heartsick Diaspora (recommended in the Guardian, The Singapore Straits Times, BookRiot, and Esquire SG) and compiler/editor of Cooked Up: Food Fiction From Around the World.

Her stories have won prizes, notably twice in the Bridport International Short Story Prize, and been anthologised in the U.S., UK and Asia, recently with BBC Radio 4 and in The Best Asian Short Stories 2021).

She mentors, teaches creative writing ad hoc, writes freelance and has worked as an independent researcher in the visual arts. She has an M.A. in Asian Art History from Goldsmiths London. In a former career, she was a U.S. trained attorney with a degree from Stanford and worked in New York, London and Hong Kong. The Light Between Us is her first novel and has been longlisted for the inaugural Cheshire Novel Prize.

You can find more information on www.epchiew.com and find her on Twitter @ChiewElaine, FB @epchiew.921 and IG @ epchiew.

Angela is a senior librarian and a creative writing tutor and has written for the Oxford Reading Tree programme. She is also the author behind the multi award-winning adventure park Hobbledown. Her characters can be seen walking around the park, something she still finds incredibly charming! She is a member of the Climate Writers Fiction League, a group of international authors who use climate issues in their work. Scareground, her debut spine-tingling middle-grade novel will be published in 2023. She lives in Oxford with her family. 

Rupande Mehta is an Indian immigrant, a professional working for a Fortune 500 company, an activist for causes related to violence against women, environment, and social justice. In 2020, Rupande ran for State Senate in New Jersey’s 25th district and received the most votes ever received by a Democrat for that seat. She is a state committee woman from Morris County and is a member of the Emerge New Jersey cabinet, an organization that recruits, trains, and provides a network to Democratic women who run for office. Her first book Trihayani: the Untold Story of Draupadi was released in March 2022 (India date: April 1, 2022). Rupande is an avid reader and a Pelotoner. She can be found @rupee80 on Instagram, @rupandemehta on Twitter.