Poet and novelist Susan Wicks was born in Kent, England in 1947. She read French at the Universities of Hull and Sussex, and wrote a D. Phil. thesis on André Gide. She has lived and worked in France, Ireland and America and has taught at University College Dublin and the University of Kent.

She is the author of five collections of poetry including Singing Underwater (1992), which won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize, and The Clever Daughter (1996), which was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. She is also the author of two novels, The Key (1997), the story of a middle-aged woman haunted by the memory of a former lover, and Little Thing (1998), a novel which subverts conventional expectations of time and causality in the story of a young English woman teaching in France. Her latest collection of poetry is De-iced (2007). Roll Up for the Arabian Derby, a collection of short stories, was published in 2008.

Andrew Martin grew up in Yorkshire. After qualifying as a barrister, he won The Spectator Young Writer of the Year Award, 1988, which deflected him into a writing career, eventually becoming a freelance journalist writing about the north, class, trains, seaside towns and eccentric individuals.

His first novel, Bilton, was a satire on lifestyle journalism set in the near future. His second, The Bobby Dazzlers, was a crime novel set in contemporary York. The Necropolis Railway, the first of the series of historical thrillers featuring the young railwayman turned railway policeman, Jim Stringer, was published in 2002. It was followed by The Blackpool Highflyer, The Lost Luggage Porter, Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on A Branch Line. The sixth title in the series, The Last Train to Scarborough was published in 2009. Murder at Deviation Junction and Death on a Branch Line were both shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Crime Awards in 2007 and 2008; Andrew Martin was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger In The Library Award 2008 for the entire series.

He has also edited a dictionary of humorous quotations: Funny You Should Say That, as well as a book explaining housework to his fellow men: How To Get Things Really Flat: A Man’s Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.

Michael Haslam was born in Bolton in 1947, and has lived near Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire since 1970.

Widely published in the network associated with 'The Cambridge School of Poetry' in the early 1970s, he founded the small press Open Township and edited the magazine Folded Sheets (1985-91). In 1995, Carcanet Press published his collected poems, A Whole Bauble. Michael's work is collected in Mid Life (Shearsman 2007), covering his work up to the 1990s, as well as in volumes with the title Music (Arc 2001, 2005 & 2009). His website gives the reader an insight into his work - www.continualesong.com

Tom Jenks was born in Sunderland and now lives, works and writes in Manchester. He is the founding editor of Parameter Magazine and has had a mini-series, OMEN, published by Matchbox. His first collection is A Priori.