Bio: Prajwal Parajuly's first book, THE GURKHA'S DAUGHTER: STORIES, will be published by Quercus Books in late 2012 and chronicles the lives of Nepali-speaking people around the world in eight short stories. Prajwal's second book, a novel, is a family saga that details the conflict within a Nepali-speaking family spread over northeastern India, Nepal, the U.S and the U.K. The novel will be published by Quercus Books in late 2013. From Gangtok, Sikkim, in India, Prajwal is the son of an Indian father and a Nepalese mother. He is pursuing a Master of Studies in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford's Kellogg College. Before starting the degree, he was an advertising executive at The Village Voice in New York.

Bio: Kerry was born in Kingston, Jamaica and came to England in 1965 at the age of ten. She has published many works of non-fiction. Pao is her first work of fiction, which traces one man’s search for a sense of self and place in Jamaica that is also struggling to shape its identity and destiny. Kerry completed an MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University. Pao is the first of a trilogy and is published by Bloomsbury. See Kerry's website for more details: www.kerryyoung.co.uk.

Pao has been shortlisted for the First Novel Award at the Costa Book Awards 2011. Winner to be announced 4 January 2012.

Bio: Australian born Kirrilly followed her heart and moved to Yorkshire to live with her husband, after meeting him in Italy whilst working as an au pair. She then spent nine years working as a copywriter for various Leeds-based marketing agencies whilst writing for local magazines in her spare time. She began work on her first novel, The Retrievalist, just before her son was born and now juggles motherhood and novel writing.

Bio: Jenni Clapham is 22 years old and has been writing for as long as she can remember. In 2003 she won the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust Young Writer of the Year award, and since then has been published in magazines, anthologies, and online. Jenni was most recently published in The Cadaverine, an online magazine for promoting promising writers under 25, and in 'Mertales', an anthology of short stories for teens by Wyvern Press. She is currently working on novels for teens as she loves the passion and intensity of the genre. Afterglow is her début title, a candid and thoughtful story of a date rape and its aftermath.

Bio: Sarah has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing. She has taught at Lancaster, Manchester and Edge Hill University. Her work has been broadcast by the BBC, performed at The Alone Festival and as part of the Naked Stage Festival and published by SWAMP Journal, Flax and Unthank. Her first novel, Game, Set, Love-Match is available from Amazon and KILLING DANIEL was recently shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Novel Award. She is currently at work on a new crime fiction called MY SISTER’S KILLER. To find out more information, follow her @sarahjanedobbs.com or visit sarahjanedobbs.wordpress.com.

Bio: Patrick Wilmot was born in Jamaica in 1942. A graduate of Yale and Vanderbilt, Dr Wilmot taught Sociology at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria for eighteen years. In 1988 he was abducted by Nigerian security police and forcibly 'retired' to London. He has published various academic textbooks and articles, short stories and poetry. His first novel was Seeing Double (Cape).

Bio: Having told his teenage sons he could write something ‘better than the rubbish they were reading’, their challenge that he was ‘all mouth and no trousers’ was enough to kick-start Al into action. Two years and too many printer cartridges later, his first young adult novel, ‘The Free Lunch’ is set to prove his point. Al’s keen interest in pro-cycling and previous role as bass player with Chorley’s top salsa combo provide the backdrop to his writing. He is currently working on a sequel to The Free Lunch, the funny story of a teenager’s fight for justice in his home town.

Title: The Beautiful Protectors
Author: L E Butler

Bio: L.E. Butler is an American writer living in Yorkshire. Her novel Relief was called "hauntingly beautiful" by Oscholars Review, and her short stories have appeared in The View from Here and Neon Literary Review. Her new novel, The Beautiful Protectors, is a love triangle set in Petrograd during the revolutions of February and October 1917. When she is not writing she works at a charity law centre and as a Russian translator.

Bio: Clare has worked in Hospice Care and in Forensic Psychiatry as an Occupational Therapist, tried out as a nun, worked in a therapeutic community for children, attempted to set up a teen coffee shop in her local town, worked in prisons in Nicaragua and helped set up a counselling centre for Chechnyan refugees in Russia. She received a degree in Contemporary Applied Arts in 2007; her dissertation looked at political protests made through the medium of ceramics throughout the centuries. Not Quite Eden is a romantic comedy about a teenage girl who, with her friends, plays with fire and wins.