Compton Mackenzie was born into a theatrical family. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of James M. Barrie's plays, includin…
William John Banville is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that …
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Colu…
Anita Hale Shreve was an American writer, chiefly known for her novels. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting (published 1975), was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1976.
Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He mo…
Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed internatio…
Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was a prolific Scottish novelist, short story writer and poet whose darkly comedic voice made her one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century. In 2008 The Times…
Christianna Brand (December 17, 1907 - March 11, 1988) was a crime writer and children's author. Brand also wrote under the pseudonyms Mary Ann Ashe, Annabel Jones, Mary Roland, and China Thomson.
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Sco…
Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published three volumes of stories, one book of nonfiction, and five novels. In 2015, she was named the inaugural Laureate for I…
Hilary Mantel was the bestselling author of many novels including Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Bring Up the Bodies, Book Two of the…
Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for three decades. She is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Genius of Birds, which has been translated…
Graham William Walker is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist, known by his stage name Graham Norton. He is the host of the comedy chat show The Graham Norton Show and the BBC …
Charlie English is a British non-fiction author and former head of international news at the Guardian. He has written four critically-acclaimed books: The Snow Tourist (2008); The Book Smugglers of Ti…
Helen Simonson was born in England and spent her teenage years in a small village in East Sussex. A dual UK/USA citizen, she is a graduate of the London School of Economics with an MFA from Stony Broo…
Benjamin Labatut was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He spent his childhood in The Hague and Buenos Aires and when he was twelve years old he moved to Santiago de Chile, where he lives today.
David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for a degree in English and American Literature follow…
Serhii Plokhy is a Ukrainian and American historian. Plokhy is currently the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, …
Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock in 1967. He studied English Literature at Glasgow University before spending some years teaching in France, the Czech Republic and Portugal. He then took an…
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Legends & Lattes, Bookshops & Bonedust, and Brigands & Breadknives. Audie-winning. Audiobook narrator. Erstwhile game developer. Made Fate, Torchlight & Rebel G…
Tormod is author of Shadow Castles, and the Mysterious Scotland series. He’s lived in the East Neuk of Fife for as long as he can remember, and together with his wife, forages across Scotland for insp…
Mark Cooper-Jones would like you to know that, actually, he chose to perform in the tiny Globe pub because its name encompasses the theme of his show. A former supply teacher, he's here to share his c…