Martin is a writer, editor, teacher and musician. He has twenty years’ experience as a writer, reviewer, manuscript assessor, structural editor, writing teacher, line-editor, copy-editor and proofreader. His fiction has appeared in a range of world-renowned publications including Esquire, The London Magazine and New Writing (Picador). Martin has received numerous prizes for his work, including first- and final-year prizes for outstanding achievement in the School of English and American Studies (UEA BA), the Alumni Association prize for fiction (UEA MA), a Hawthornden Fellowship, two Arts Council writer’s awards, and a Wingate Scholarship in literature. He has taught widely, for the British Council, the Arts Council, at City, University of London, UEA, Holland Park School and elsewhere. He recently completed his novel Frugality with the generous support of Arts Council England.

Mary Hargreaves is an author and editor with a decade of experience. After writing her first novel, This Is Not A Love Story (Trapeze, Orion), she decided to take her editing career further and joined the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, where she undertook a fiction editing course. Mary quit her day job in 2020 to focus on editing and writing full-time, and as her second novel, Enough Already, was published, she wrote her third book and continued building her list of freelance clients. With a background in academia and a keen eye for detail, Mary has shifted her attention from dry research papers to her true passion in life: reading, writing and editing brilliant stories. Mary writes women’s fiction, and has a particular interest in funny tales about imperfect women. She knows how hard the writing process is, and loves nothing more than helping talented authors make their work the best it can be.

Mary Torjussen has an MA in Creative Writing from Liverpool John Moores University and writes psychological suspense. She loves to write about women who find themselves in a perilous situation where the danger is close to home. She lives near Liverpool and likes to use local settings for her novels. She was previously a teacher who took a gamble when redundancy was offered, deciding she’d take time off work to write a novel. Luckily this paid off when her first novel, Gone Without a Trace (2016) was simultaneously bought by Headline in the UK and Penguin in the US. Ecosse bought the TV option and it was also translated into nine languages. Her follow up novels are The Girl I Used to Be (2018) and The Closer You Get (2020). She gives talks in bookshops, libraries and to students on creative writing courses, and has been on panels at CrimeFest in Bristol, ThrillerFest in New York, Bouchercon in Toronto and Iceland Noir in Reykjavík.

Megan Collins is the author of the psychological thrillers The Winter Sister (2019), Behind the Red Door (2020), and The Family Plot (2021), all published by Atria/Simon & Schuster. Megan holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University, and she taught creative writing for twelve years. Throughout her teaching career, she guided many of her students through the process of writing and revising work that then went on to win prestigious regional, state, and national writing competitions. Many of her former students have since had their work published. Megan is also the managing editor of 3Elements Review, a prompt-based literary magazine, where one of her duties is to provide extensive feedback (on the developmental and line-edit levels) to submitters who pay for such services.   Find Megan on Twitter here: @ImMeganCollins

Naomi has over eight years’ experience working in children’s publishing. She began her career at Puffin (Penguin Random House) before moving to Orion and then Hachette Children’s Group. Her previous experience as a Rights Manager brings invaluable insight into maximising a book’s sales potential and she has worked closely with both UK and international editors to develop a good knowledge of global publishing markets and trends. Naomi has a BA (Hons) in English Studies from the University of Nottingham and is a keen reader and writer. She was the children’s book reviewer for award winning family travel blog Mini Travellers for over three years. Naomi has been working as a freelance editor and mentor helping other children’s writers to develop their manuscripts and craft for over four years. Her debut picture book The Perfect Fit (OUP) was published in March 2021 and was followed in 2022 by One More Try (OUP), The Odd Fish (Foreshore) and How to Catch a Rainbow (OUP). How to Make a Story will publish in February 2023 (OUP). Naomi’s picture books have now been translated into 18 languages.   Find Naomi on Twitter here: @NaomiJones_1

Natasha is an author, PhD researcher and creative writing teacher. Her debut psychological thriller, His Perfect Wife, was published by Penguin in 2018 and her second novel, This Nowhere Place came out in 2021. She’s also published short stories, memoir and creative non-fiction. Stylist labelled His Perfect Wife ‘2018’s most gripping psychological thriller,’ The Guardian called it ‘an astutely written, complex debut,’ and Publisher’s Weekly awarded it a starred review. Natasha holds an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths and is currently working on a practice-led PhD in autofiction. She teaches introductory and novel-writing courses at City Lit, mentors for The Riff Raff, and previously worked as a sub-editor at The Press Association. She loves narrative in all forms, but has a particular passion for psychological suspense, women’s fiction and stories that blur the line between truth and fiction. She’s lived in the US and the UK, and currently resides in south-east London. Find Natasha on Twitter here: @byTashB  

Neema Shah is an award-winning author and marketer. Her debut novel Kololo Hill was published in 2021 by Picador and has featured in The Independent, The Irish Times, Marie Claire and Daily Mail among others. Neema’s work won the Literary Consultancy Pen Factor Live and was shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award, First Novel Prize and York Festival of Writing Best Opening Chapter competitions. Kololo Hill was also longlisted for the Retreat West Novel Prize, Exeter Novel Prize, SI Leeds Literary Prize and York Festival of Writing Pitch Perfect awards. Her flash fiction won the Curtis Brown #WriteCBC competition and came second prize in the Casket of Fictional Delights, judged by Kit de Waal. Neema developed her writing through the University of East Anglia Writing Fiction course and Jericho Writers Self Edit Your Novel course among others. She mentors writers including those from under-represented backgrounds and is passionate about building a more diverse publishing industry. Neema has a Law LLB degree and is a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualified marketer. Find Nemma on Twitter here: @NeemaMShah Author image © Alexander James

Nicola Mostyn has twenty years experience in working with creativity, as an arts journalist, columnist, editor, writing coach and the author of two novels and one non-fiction title. Nicola’s debut The Gods of Love was shortlisted for The Writers’ Guild Best First Novel award, became an I-news top ten debut, a NetGalley top read and an Amazon bestseller. The sequel, The Love Delusion, followed in 2019. Nicola’s non-fiction title, Seven Creative Gremlins, was written in conjunction with a Life Coach and is aimed at helping writers combat common psychological blocks. She runs the website TheUnstoppableAuthor.com, offering support, inspiration and tough love to aspiring and established writers. Nicola has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from The University of Manchester and a certificate in Teaching Creative Writing Workshops from Manchester Metropolitan University. From 2017 to 2020, Nicola held creative writing workshops in Manchester to help writers make progress on their work in a supportive and relaxed environment.   Find Nicola on Twitter here: @NicolaMostyn

Paul Roberts is a writer and business consultant with a love for effective communication. His first book was published by The Economist in 2007 and is now in its third edition. He has had several further books published by Kogan Page, forming part of their hugely influential ‘Business Success’ series. Paul’s latest non-fiction book has been published by Routledge in their ‘Absolute Essentials’ series, causing Paul to realise, if ever proof was needed, that it is far harder to write a short book than a long one. Paul writes frequently for magazines and professional publications as diverse as the Independent, Evening Standard, Maxim and Viz comic. He has also written for television. He has a novel nearing completion. As a reviewer, editor and teacher of creative writing, he has supported developing writers for many years.

Dr Pauline Frederica Kiernan is an award-winning playwright, commissioned screenwriter and prize-winning short story writer. She has been a literary consultant for 12 years and has taught Creative Writing on Oxford University’s Creative Writing Undergraduate and MA programmes. Pauline is a former lecturer at the University of Oxford and a Shakespeare scholar, and was appointed Leverhulme Fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe to work with Mark Rylance and the directors and actors in its first six years as dramaturg and research resource. She is the author of the snappily-entitled Screenwriting They Can’t Resist: How to Create Screenplays of Originality and Cinematic Power. Break The Rules and is a theatre and film consultant. Her monographs, Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama, and Staging Shakespeare at the New Globe were published to worldwide acclaim, and her best-selling Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Most Outrageous Sexual Puns was an Observer Book of the Year. She is currently writing the first of a series of crime novels set in Italy, and a book about Keats.

Philip is the author of The Other Book and The Liberators (Bloomsbury). The Liberators was a Children’s Book of the Year for 2010. Philip Womack was born in Sussex, and educated at Lancing and Oriel College, Oxford, where he read Classics and English. After graduating, he worked at Literary Review for four years, before becoming freelance in 2008 on publication of his first novel, The Other Book. Six novels for children followed, including The Liberators, The Double Axe and The Arrow of Apollo, and his first non-fiction work for adults, How to Teach Classics to Your Dog, was published in October 2020. He teaches Creative Writing to BA and MA students at London University, and has been a literary critic for nearly twenty years, as well as a freelance journalist for a variety of national newspapers and magazines, writing on topics such as education and literature, and even an article on pyjamas for Tatler magazine. He is currently on the Management Committee of the Society of Authors and a Contributing Editor to Literary Review.   Find Philip on Twitter here: @WomackPhilip

Pippa began her children’s book career as a bookseller and advisor to publishers before beginning to write books herself. She’s had over a hundred titles published, some of them award-winning. From Saturday girl to manager of Heffers Children’s Bookshop, Pippa went on to work with top children’s book editors before beginning her own writing career. For the last quarter century, Pippa has combined writing her own books with teaching and critiquing to develop writing for children skills in others. To date, Pippa has had over 140 picture books, early readers, and MG novels published. Best known is picture book You Choose, illustrated by Nick Sharratt, with sales well over a million copies, and awards from York Libraries and Mumsnet. The well-known Winnie the Witch storybooks are all written by Pippa under the name of ‘Laura Owen’.  Pippa has had novels shortlisted for the Kathleen Fidler Award, the Smarties Prize, and The Young Telegraph Book of the Year. New novel, The Great Sea Dragon Discovery, has won the Young Quills Award for best children’s historical novel, 2019. Pippa worked for OUP on novels by Jacqueline Wilson, Tim Bowler, Helena Pielichaty and Geraldine McCaughrean.  Through Jericho Writers she has worked with writers such as Pip Jones and Catherine Emmett.   Find Pippa on Twitter here: @pippagoodhart