Simon Nicholls is currently Executive Producer for the Comedy department at BBC Studios. For five years Simon was a producer in Armando Iannucci’s team at the BBC, working across a slate of comedies including The Thick Of It, Time Trumpet, Genius with Dave Gorman and Chris Addison’s sitcom Lab Rats.  At NBC Universal Simon helped develop Christopher Guest’s HBO comedy Family Tree and recent BBC Two comedy Quacks. Simon has…

Richard is ‘one of Britain’s leading cultural commentators’ (The Guardian), a prizewinning writer and bestselling author. He ‘writes entirely without sentimentality and with exquisite tenderness – but his books are underpinned by close research that puts individuals in their wider historical context’ (The Financial Times). Richard also works with businesses from General Motors to Unilever on strategy…

Caroline Ambrose is the founder and organiser of The Bath Novel Award and The Bath Children’s Novel Award, two annual international prizes for emerging novelists. After gaining a BA Hons in English Literature, Language and Social Psychology at the University of Birmingham, she joined The Body Shop International where she worked her way from the shop floor…

Ian has worked in IT for 20 years and is married. Originally from the north-east and currently living in Kent, he is now determined to see his creative work in print.

Rob was Creative Director at Penguin Books for five years, and since 2009 he has been working as a screenwriter. He wrote on all of the BBC’s continuing dramas and ITV’s DCI Banks, then created and wrote the series Chasing Shadows for ITV. After two years in writers’ rooms in London and L.A. working on the first two seasons…

Tim is a journalist and author based in London. His first book, a memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, was published in 1996 and won the PEN/J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. It is now published as a Penguin Modern Classic. His next work, and first novel, White City Blue, was published in 1999 and won that year’s Whitbread…

Liz Melnyczuk is a writer, linguist, and educator with a passion for Yorkshire tea. She is currently writing a novel about speed-date rambling and malevolent sheep. When she is not writing, she enjoys climbing and Ceroc dancing (but not at the same time). She has lived in many countries including Italy, Poland and Cornwall.

Founded in 1998 by Helen Corner-Bryant, Cornerstones is the world’s leading transatlantic literary consultancy, offering a range of services to bring writer’s books to the next level. Their editorial packages include industry-style reader’s reports, one-to-one mentoring, final-stage copy-editing and proofreading, and an intensive Edit Your Novel masterclass online course (based on their book, On Editing:…

Anj Cairns lives in North London, loves all things books, writing, reading and food. She began writing her first book, Beverley Hills Mansion, aged 13, with a school friend. All that remains is a single handwritten page. Now, in the 21st Century, she writes young adult fantasy and science fiction in the contemporary world. Life in Your World is the…

Jacob Collins has been writing since he was ten and is currently writing a crime novel. He publishes his reviews of crime and psychological thriller novels on his blog, which also features author interviews.