Elizabeth Buchan

Elizabeth Buchan was born in Guildford and began her career as a blurb writer at Penguin Books after graduating from the University. She moved on to fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full-time. Her novels include the award-winning Consider the Lily, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, which was made into a CBS Primetime Drama. Other novels include I Can’t Begin to Tell You,The New Mrs Clifton and The Museum of Broken. Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for The Times, the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She has been a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award.

Michael Buerk

Michael Buerk has reported on some of the biggest stories in our lifetime including the Birmingham pub bombing and Lockerbie. He was in Buenos Aires at the start of the Falklands War and his first report on the Ethiopian famine sent shock waves around the world. He has been the face of the BBC evening news for many years and has fronted everything from the BBC1 series 999 to Radio 4's The Moral Maze. Michael has won every major award and is universally admired and respected for his intelligent and honest journalism. What is less known is that he is also loved by his colleagues, not least for his wicked sense of humour.

Adele Parks

Adele Parks always dreamed of being a writer and her first novel, Playing Away was published in 2000. Since then, Adele has proven to be one of our most-loved and biggest-selling women's fiction writers in the UK. She's published fifteen novels in fifteen years, all of which have been Times Top Ten bestsellers with over three million UK editions sold. Examining those undeniable, lasting issues that interest us all, she scrutinizes our theories of love, motherhood and infidelity with honesty and humour. She writes numerous articles and short stories for national magazines and newspapers and often appears on radio and TV talking about her work.  Adele has spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana, Leicester and London, but now lives very happily in Guildford, with her husband and son. Adele has recently won an MBE for her services to literarture.

Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen is one of the best-known figures in the children's book world, renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. He is the Children's Laureate 2007-2009. As an author and by selecting other writers' works for anthologies he has been involved with over 140 books. He lectures and teaches in universities on children's literature, reading and writing. Michael Rosen's writing for children appeals to all ages. He writes non-fiction, novels, picture books, retells classics and stories from other cultures as well as writing poetry. He has been shortlisted for and won many awards. His classic picture book We're Going on a Bear Hunt, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury won the Nestle Smarties Grand Prize in 1989.

Max Lu

Professor Max Lu is President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey. He is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, and is on the Boards of UKRI, the National Physical Laboratory, Universities UK, and the Leadership Council of the National Centre for Universities and Business. Locally, he also serves as Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey and a patron of the charity Transform. He is co-inventor of more than 20 granted international patents, and has been honoured with numerous awards including, recently, the Medal of the Order of Australia for his distinguished service to education and international research and to Australia–China relations.

Alistair Burtenshaw

Alistair Burtenshaw is Director of Watts Gallery – Artist’s Village. Alistair was previously Director of Charleston in East Sussex, the former home of Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. During this time Alistair also led the development of the Charleston Festival and Small Wonder short story festival, as well as being instrumental in the foundation of the Charleston-to-Charleston Literary Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, its Keynes Prize and the Charleston Lifetime's Excellence Award in Short Fiction Award.

Alistair was for many years Director of The London Book Fair. He has also previously held the positions of Chair of Arvon, the UK's creative writing charity, Chair of BookTrust, the literacy and reader development charity, Executive Committee Member of English PEN, and Trustee of the Book Trade Charity.