DAREN KAY has worked for over 30 years as an advertising copy writer. Half of which as Creative Director, Innovation Director and Director of Unlimited Thinking for one of London’s biggest agencies. 200+ advertising awards to his name, including Cannes Lions and D&AD. Editor of 26 Compelling Letters – an anthology of direct marketing copy. Now semi-retired, Daren is enjoying working on several writing projects – including working with Inkandescent – as well as learning piano, brushing up his Spanish and manning the door as Dusty Vinyls at Brighton’s soul extravaganza - Fever Club.

KIT DE WAAL writes novels, short stories and flash fiction for which she has won numerous awards.  Her debut novel, My Name is Leon won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Costa Debut Novel, the British Book Awards Debut and the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2016, she founded the Kit de Waal Scholarship at Birkbeck University.  Her monologue Imagine That was performed at The Old Vic as part of the celebration of 100 Years of Suffrage and her second novel, The Trick to Time is longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. 

CHRIS HAMILTON-EMERY is a poet, book designer and director of Salt. He has published three collections of poetry, a writer’s guide, an anthology of art and poems, and edited editions of Emily Brontë, Keats and Rossetti. His work has been widely published in magazines and anthologised, most recently in Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe). He is a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing, edited by David Morley and Philip Neilsen. He lives in Cromer, North Norfolk, with his wife and children.

SAM MISSINGHAM is a self-confessed publishing and books nerd. She recently launched Lounge Marketing (http://www.loungemarketing.com), a book marketing membership service for authors. Which follows her other launch last year of Lounge Books (http://www.lounge-books.com) which is a community for book-lovers. Prior to this she worked at HarperCollins UK for 4 years as head of audience development where she ran large-scale marketing campaigns that connect books and authors with readers. Previous to HarperCollins she worked at the industry trade magazine, The Bookseller, for 5 years running conferences, awards, marketing where she was also co-founder of FutureBook. She speaks regularly about book marketing and publishing strategies around the world, loves speaking to students and mentoring people entering publishing. Follow Sam on Twitter: @samatlounge @lounge_books 

REBECCA CARTER is a Literary Agent at Janklow & Nesbit (UK) Ltd, where she represents authors of literary fiction and non-fiction, as well as some crime and thriller writers. From Rutger Bregman to Olivia Laing, the writers she works with are characterised by their desire to see and portray the world in fresh, bold ways, taking the reader to unexpected places both in form and content. In 2017 she was the agent for half the shortlisted authors in the ‘Biography’ category of the Costa Book Awards (Xiaolu Guo and Rebecca Stott). Having worked as a literary scout for publishers around the world, and then as an Editorial Director of Random House imprints Chatto & Windus and Harvill Secker, Rebecca has a broad experience of many different aspects of the publishing industry, which she uses to assist her authors in all areas of their writing careers be it in shaping a manuscript, securing a book deal or selling Film and TV rights. She is passionate about bringing under-represented voices into the literary arena, frequently speaking on panels about how to get published, and belonging to the PEN ‘Writers in Translation’ committee. She lives in Oxford, works in London and does a lot of reading on the train between the two.

JULIA BELL is a writer and academic and Course Director of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. She is the author of three novels, most recently The Dark Light (Macmillan) and the co-editor of The Creative Writing Coursebook. She is currently working on a series of lyric essays and a volume of poetry - you can find out more at www.juliabell.net

ULI LENART is one of two managers who run Gay’s the Word bookshop where he has worked since 2004. He is also a member of the board of directors. His areas of special responsibility include events planning and management, press and publicity. In addition to Gay’s the Word, Uli has been working as a book reviewer and literary feature writer for the LGBT+ press for around a decade. He is presently the book reviewer at Attitude, the UK’s leading gay lifestyle and culture magazine. In 2013 he was ‘chair of judges’ for the Green Carnation Prize, a literary award for any form of the written word by an LGBT writer. In April 2018 he was asked to present a seminar at The London Book Fair about fostering community in independent book retail and he is currently working alongside the Bookselling Association, helping them continue to stimulate inclusion and diversity in the industry through a grants initiative. He is currently judging a YA short fiction writing competition alongside the writer Juno Dawson and the editorial team at Stripes Publishing for a forthcoming anthology, due out in 2019. 

MATT CAIN was born in Bury and brought up in Bolton. He spent ten years making arts and entertainment programmes for ITV before stepping in front of the camera in 2010 to become Channel 4 News’ first ever culture editor. His first novel, Shot Through the Heart, was published in 2014 and his second, Nothing But Trouble, followed in 2015. His latest release is The Madonna Of Bolton, published in the UK in July 2018. As a journalist, Matt has contributed articles to all the major UK newspapers and in 2017 was voted Diversity in Media's Journalist of the Year. In Spring 2018 he stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of Attitude, the UK's biggest-selling magazine for gay men. He lives in London.