Helen Dunmore is an award-winning poet, novelist, short-story writer and children's writer. Also a reviewer, BBC radio broadcaster, writing tutor and lecturer. Her nine collections include Glad of These Times (2007), and her tenth novel Counting the Stars is published in 2008.

Michael Laskey was co-founder of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and Director for its first ten years and he is founding editor of Smiths Knoll. He has published three collections, including The Tightrope Wedding which was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. His New & Selected Poems is due in 2008.

Jamie McKendrick has published five collections including Ink Stone (2003), shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and Whitbread Poetry Award, and most recently Crocodiles and Obelisks (2007). Editor of the Faber Book of 20th-Century Italian Poems (2004), he has recently translated the poetry of Valerio Magrelli.