Shaista Asad is from Pakistan, professionally a teacher, and loves to write poetry. She has written a lot of poetry for kids and is a member of a society of poets in Edinburgh. She is one of the 'books' of Living Library, Edinburgh.

Catherine Czerkawska, a PEN member, is an award winning writer of novels, stories, poems, and plays. Her stage play Wormwood was produced to critical acclaim at the Traverse Theatre and is a Higher Drama set text. She has just completed a new novel called The Physic Garden and a collection of short stories.

Iyad Hayatleh, a Palestinian refugee poet, was born and grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria in 1960. He started writing poetry early and published his work in Arabic magazines, giving many readings in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. He has lived in Glasgow since 2000, and he is now an active member of Scottish Pen and Artists In Exile Glasgow and has taken part in many events and translation and poetry workshops. His first collection Beyond all measure is published by Survivors' Press. Recently he co-led two poetry workshops in Glasgow and Inverness sponsored by Scottish Poetry Library and Oxfam.

Kusay Hussein is from Baghdad, Iraq. As a fully qualified civil engineer he worked for the American and British authorities building hospitals and schools for the Iraqi people until he was kidnapped by an unknown military group for several months and had to seek asylum in Britain on his release. He has published many short stories in Iraqi magazines such as AFAK ARABIA and ALFA – BET.
Sue Reid Sexton, who collaborated with Kusay on this story, is from Glasgow and a member of Student PEN. She worked as a counsellor for over a decade and spent another decade working with homelessness. She writes novels about war, ordinary people and freedom of expression. She has been published in From Glasgow To Saturn and the anthology (In) Fidelity.

Faares Mahdy is from Palestine and is qualified as a social worker and photojournalist and has a diploma in the arts. He has written 10 short stories and a number of poems, unpublished because of the political circumstances back home. He won the best Arabic poet & performance in Cairo in early 2001 and is hoping to start an Arabic writers' group in Glasgow for communication and exchange between different cultures and opinions. He looks forward to finishing his first book in 2010 and prays to God for no more problems in his life.

Jessica Parkinson, a member of Student PEN, was born in Malawi and brought up in Canada. She studied International Development and Women’s Studies in Peterborough, Ontario and has lived in such places as Ghana and Penghu. She is now settled in Kilcreggan on the west coast of Scotland, in a house that has been in her family for five generations. Jessica writes poetry and is currently completing a first novel. She draws on her search for home for inspiration.

Manjula Parekh was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1940 and came to Edinburgh in 1968 to work as a radiographer. She has received the Millennium Fellowship Award and attended the creative writing course at Edinburgh University. She writes in Gujarati, Hindi and English. In recent years, she has developed her interest in watercolour, acrylic, silk and oil painting. She has arranged exhibitions of her work to raise funds for Alzheimer Scotland, Buddhist monastery, Equality Choice Action Group and Tsunami. Her first book of stories with illustrations of many of her paintings and drawings called “Edinburgh Fables” was published in 2001.

Tessa Ransford is past president and committee member of Scottish PEN. She is an established poet, translator, editor and cultural activist on many fronts over the last thirty years and the initiator of www.scottish-pamphlet-poetry.com and the Callum Macdonald Memorial award for poetry pamphlets. She has recently been Royal Literary Fund fellow at Queen Margaret University. Her latest book isNot Just Moonshine, New and Selected poems, from Luath Press, Edinburgh.

Morelle Smith, a PEN member,was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and grew up in both urban and rural environments: the pattern of moving between these seems to have persisted. Travel has become a rhythm in her life. Since the eighties, she has been a professional writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her most recent book of poems is The Ravens and The Lemon Tree (diehard press).

Magdalena Walicka is Polish and studying English at Langside College. After she graduated from Wroclaw University she worked in the Polish-French Friendship Association as a French teacher. In 2007 she decided to come to Scotland. At the moment she is studying English and in the future she hopes to teach French in Scotland.