Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland and raised in West Africa. Her first book The Devil that Danced on the Water was runner-up for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2003. Her novel Ancestor Stones was winner of the 2008 Hurston Wright Legacy Award, the Liberaturpreis in Germany, was nominated for the International IMPAC Award and selected by the Washington Post as one of the most important books of 2006. In 2007 Vanity Fair named Aminatta as one of Africa's most promising new writers. Her latest book is The Memory of Love. Aminatta has also written for magazines and newspapers, radio and television, and presented television documentaries on Africa's history and art. Aminatta Forna lives in London with her husband. www.aminattaforna.com

Neil mac Neil's poems have been published widely in the UK and overseas and gained several prizes and commendations. In 2006 he was Poet in Residence for Cowalfest; also Chapman (108) published four poems in collaboration with artist Don McNeil. Currently he is completing more joint work with Don McNeil and artist Jean Bell for An Tobar's winter 2010 exhibition on Mull. In the past two years he has published little but has produced more than 100 new poems several of which have been published this year and fifteen of which received commendations from editors new to his work. He has lived in Spain since 2003.

Christine De Luca was born and brought up in Shetland. She is a prize-winning poet writing in both English and Shetlandic. She has had five collections of poetry published, and won the poetry Prix du Livre Insulaire 2007 for a bilingual Selected. She particularly enjoys translating the work of other poets into Shetlandic and has taken part in poetry events in Finland, Norway, France, Italy and India. Christine is a member of a cooperative which promotes art and literature in Orkney and Shetland. She is a member of Shore Poets, Edinburgh.
www.christinedeluca.co.uk
www.hanselcooperativepress.co.uk

Sobani Iddamalgoda is a researcher in the University of Dundee who came to Scotland from Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka she was lecturing in English in the University of Colombo. She has written three books. Two of them are English novels. She has written poetry which has been published in newspapers and anthologies abroad. Her first novel Tapestry was included in the 'list of best.' for the IMPAC award 2006 that is given annually in Dublin. After she came to Scotland two of her short stories were published in www.shortbreadstories.co.uk/ .

Loky Kalonda is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She now lives in Glasgow and is a member of the Glasgow West Framework for Dialogue group and the related Swapping Stories workshops run by Sue Reid Sexton. Her first language is French.

Jim Aitken lives and works in Edinburgh, where he has been an English teacher in a large secondary school for many years. His first publication was a collection of poems called 'Glory', published by Clockwork in 2001. He has also had a play performed at the Edinburgh Fringe called ' Fom Haddington to Palestine' at Theatre Workshop in 2006. His last collection of poems, 'Neptune's Staff and other Formations', was published by SCND in 2007. He also write articles on education for the TESS from time to time and has a new play, 'Letters From Area C', which he hopes to have performed next year. He has been a Scottish PEN member for a number of years.

Rizwan Akhtar divides his time between Aberdeen and Essex. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Essex. His poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry NZ, Wasafiri, Postcolonial Text, decanto, Poesia, PAK, Orbis, tinfoildresses, and have been anthologized in Poetry Forward Press, UK.

Jenni Daiches' published poetry includes Mediterranean (1995), Smoke (2005), and contributions to many Scottish magazines. Her fiction includes Letters from the Great Wall (Luath, 2006). She writes on literary and historical subjects as Jenni Calder. Her most recent book is Frontier Scots: The Scots Who Won the West (Luath, 2009). She is the recent past president of Scottish PEN.

Nabeel Kahleel is from Syria. He now lives in Glasgow and is a member of the Glasgow West Framework for Dialogue group and the related Swapping Stories workshops run by Sue Reid Sexton. His first language is Arabic.