Sandeep Mahal is director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature. She is passionate about bringing books, words and ideas to the streets of Nottingham, so everyone, everywhere gets the chance to be creative with literature. Before arriving in Nottingham, Sandeep spent ten years working in public libraries and many years in the UK publishing environment, transforming cooperation between UK publishers and the UK public library network.
Philip Jones is editor of The Bookseller, a magazine he first joined in 1996. He lives in North London, with his partner and three children.
Claire Malcolm is the founder and chief executive of New Writing North, where she leads the Gordon Burn Prize, the Northern Writers’ Awards, the David Cohen Literature Award, Durham Book Festival and editorially directs the Mayfly book imprint.
Sheila O’Reilly has been in bookselling and publishing for over 30 years. Under her ownership and management, Dulwich Books was awarded the accolade of best bookshop in the UK and Ireland by peers. Sheila has been a Costa judge, a judge of the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year award, a judge International Bookshop of the Year Award LBF and sat on many industry panels. She is currently a mentor for Independent Bookshops in the UK & Ireland.
Sandeep Mahal is director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature. She is passionate about bringing books, words and ideas to the streets of Nottingham, so everyone, everywhere gets the chance to be creative with literature. Before arriving in Nottingham, Sandeep spent ten years working in public libraries and many years in the UK publishing environment, transforming cooperation between UK publishers and the UK public library network.
Sheila O’Reilly has been in bookselling and publishing for over 30 years. Under her ownership and management, Dulwich Books was awarded the accolade of best bookshop in the UK and Ireland by peers. Sheila has been a Costa judge, a judge of the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year award, a judge International Bookshop of the Year Award LBF and sat on many industry panels. She is currently a mentor for Independent Bookshops in the UK & Ireland.
Toby Lichtig is the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times' Literary Supplement (TLS). He writes for a range of publications, including the TLS, Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, FT, Jewish Chronicle and New Humanist, and has appeared as a guest critic on various television and radio programmes. He also freelances as a documentary producer. He was chair of judges of last year's JQ/Wingate Prize.
Claire Malcolm is the founder and chief executive of New Writing North, where she leads the Gordon Burn Prize, the Northern Writers’ Awards, the David Cohen Literature Award, Durham Book Festival and editorially directs the Mayfly book imprint.
Melissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. She is a nature writer, critic and columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian, among others.
Sunjeev Sahota was born in 1981 in Derbyshire. His debut novel, Ours are the Streets, was called 'Nothing short of extraordinary' by the Observer, and 'A moral work of real intelligence and power' by the Times. His second novel, The Year of the Runaways, won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature, and the Encore Award. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015. In 2013, Sahota was named as one of Granta magazine's Best of Young British Novelists.
