Kätlin Kaldmaa is an Estonian poet, writer, translator and literary critic. She has published four collections of poetry Larii-laree (1996), One is None (2008) and Worlds, Unseen (2009), Alphabet of Love (2012), and a children’s book Four Children and Murka (2010). She has written extensively on literature, mostly literature in translation, and has translated more than 30 works of world’s best literature from the British Isles to Latin America. Amongst authors translated by her are Jeanette Winterson, Aphra Behn, Michael Ondaatje, James Meek, Ali Smith, Meg Rosoff, Madeleine Thien, Goran Simic and Gabriel García Márquez. Her own poems have been translated into Arabic, German, Latin, Japanese, Russian, English, Spanish, Finnish, Slovenian and Korean. In 2012 she won the annual Friedebert Tuglas short story award with her short story When the Boys Came. Kätlin Kaldmaa is the President of Estonian PEN. She is currently working on her first novel.

Aimee Chalmers has always worked with people on the margins of society. This life experience now influences her creative writing, which has been published in literary magazines, journals and anthologies. She edited The Singin Lass: Selected Work of Marion Angus (Polygon, 2006), recently completed a novel, Blackthorn, and performed her prose poem 'Treisur' at the launch of 26 Treasures Exhibition the National Museum of Scotland. Her poem in this issue of New Writing, 'A Wee Miracle in the Hospice', was published in Lallans, no.64.

Iyad Hayatleh is a Palestinian poet who was born in Syria; he has lived in Glasgow since 2000. He is an active member of Scottish PEN and Artists in Exile Glasgow, and has taken part in many poetry readings throughout Scotland including the Edinburgh Book Festival, and writing and translation workshops; he has had his first collection, Beyond All Measure, published by Survivors Press. He has collaborated with poet Tessa Ransford, on a two-way translation project for a book, A Rug of a Thousand Colours, with poems inspired by the Five Pillars of Islam, to be published by Luath Press in September. His poem in this issue of New Writing, 'Siyam' or 'Fasting', translated in collaboration with Tessa, will appear in this book.

Mary McCabe’s longer publications include Everwinding Times (a novel), Streets Schemes and Stages (a book on cultural projects) and Die zauberhafte Reise (a children's storybook in translation). She has had radio plays broadcast in Germany and Switzerland. Her stories, poems and articles in Scots, English and Gaelic have appeared in journals and anthologies. A new novel based on dramatic episodes from her own family tree is due out in October. Mary runs occasional workshops through the Scottish Book Trust scheme. She is a member of Scottish PEN. Missin link, her poem in this issue of New Writing, was published in the Winter 2006 issue of the literary journal Lallans.

Mario Relich, a member of Scottish PEN, is Secretary of the Poetry Association of Scotland, and is an Associate Lecturer in the MA Literature programme of the Open University. He lives in Edinburgh and grew up in Canada, but has been in Scotland for much longer. His poems were first published in Scottish International, when Robert Garioch and Edwin Morgan were poetry editors. He was a regular contributor of articles, poems and reviews for Lines Review. His poem in this issue of New Writing, 'Hartford Harmonium', was published in The Interpreter's House, no. 48 (Oct. 2011)