KIT DE WAAL’s debut novel, My Name is Leon was the winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2017 and is being adapted for the BBC. In 2016 she founded the Kit de Waal scholarship at Birkbeck, providing a fully-funded place for the MA Creative Writing to a talented student who otherwise would not be able to afford to participate. It is now in its fifth year. Kit’s second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for The Women’s Prize. Her first YA novel, Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal Award. In 2019 she crowdfunded Common People an anthology of working class memoir by new and established writers. She co-founded the Primadonna Festival in 2019 and, in response to the Covid-19 crisis, she founded the Big Book Weekend, a free virtual literary festival which had an audience of 24,000. She has won numerous awards for her short stories and flash fiction and has written for performance for BBC Radio 4, The Old Vic, The Abbey Theatre, and co-wrote The Third Day for SKY/HBO. Her latest book, a collection of short stories called Supporting Cast was published in 2020.
PAUL MCVEIGH’s debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Book Prize and The McCrea Literary Award, and was shortlisted for many others including the Prix du Roman Cezam. Paul’s plays and comedy shows toured the UK and Ireland including the Edinburgh
Festival and London’s West End. His short stories have appeared in anthologies, journals, newspapers, on BBC Radio 3, 4 & 5 and Sky Arts. He co-founded the London Short Story Festival. He co-edited the Belfast Stories anthology, and edited Queer Love and The 32: An
Anthology of Irish Working Class Writers which included new work by Kevin Barry and Roddy Doyle.
Neil Bartlett lives in London with his partner James Gardiner. His first novel, the ground-breaking queer love story Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall, was written in a council flat on the Isle of Dogs, published in 1990 and translated into five European languages. Since then, his books have been nominated for (amongst others) the Whitbread Prize (Mr Clive and Mr Page, 1996), the Costa Award (Skin Lane, 2007) and the Polari Prize (Address Book, 2022). Address Book was an Observer Book of the Year 2021, and The Disappearance Boy earnt him a nomination for Stonewall Author of the Year in 2014. Neil also makes theatre; he wrote the script for Orlando, the lead role in which was played by Emma Corrin in the West End of London in 2022, and most recently he created, with actor Russell Tovey, a special live performance of Derek Jarman's landmark final film, BLUE.
PHILIP RIDLEY was born and grew up in the East End of London. He studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art. He makes images and tells stories in various media. His first two novels, Crocodilia (1988) and In the Eyes of Mr Fury (1989), and his short story collection, Flamingoes in Orbit (1990), are now regarded as LGBTQ classics. In 2012 What’s On Stage named him one of the most influential British writers to have emerged in the past six decades. He has won both the Evening Standard’s Most Promising Newcomer to British Film and Most Promising Playwright Awards―the only person ever to receive both prizes.
ELIZABETH BAINES’ latest novel is Astral Travel. She is also the author of the novels Too Many Magpies and The Birth Machine, and two collections of short stories, Balancing on the Edge of the World and Used to Be (all available from Salt). She has written prizewinning plays for Radio 4 and for theatre, and has been an actor and teacher. She lives in
Manchester.
