WPeter Ackroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charles Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.
WDavid Almond FRSL is a British author who has written several novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.
WDame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996; she was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 by Charlotte Higgins as "a national treasure". In 2008, The Times named Bainbridge on their list of "The 10 greatest British writers since 1945".
WWilliam Boyd is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.
WAdam Samuel James Foulds FRSL is a British novelist and poet.
WAlasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
WGail Honeyman is a Scottish writer whose debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award.
WSir Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist, screenwriter and short-story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to England in 1960 when he was five.
WNorman Lebrecht is a British commentator on music and cultural affairs, a novelist, and the author of the classical music gossip blog Slipped Disc.
WMichael Longley, is an Anglo-Irish poet.
WGeraldine McCaughrean is a British children's novelist. She has written more than 170 books, including Peter Pan in Scarlet (2004), the official sequel to Peter Pan commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the holder of Peter Pan's copyright. Her work has been translated into 44 languages worldwide. She has received the Carnegie Medal twice and the Michael L. Printz Award among others.
WIan Russell McEwan, is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 in its list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".
WWilliam McIlvanney was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He was known as Gus by friends and acquaintances. McIlvanney was a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s. He is regarded as "the father of Tartan Noir" and as Scotland's Camus.
WAndrew Brooke Miller FRSL is an English novelist.
WRichard John McMoran Wilson, 2nd Baron Moran, , known as John Wilson, was a British diplomat. He was one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999.
WDonald Paterson is a Scottish poet, writer and musician.
WChristopher John Reid, FRSL is a Hong Kong-born British poet, essayist, cartoonist, and writer. In January 2010 he won the 2009 Costa Book Award for A Scattering, written as a tribute to his late wife, the actress Lucinda Gane. Beside winning the poetry category, Reid became the first poet to take the overall Costa Book of the Year since Seamus Heaney in 1999. He had been nominated for Whitbread Awards in 1996 and in 1997.
WGraham Macdonald Robb FRSL is a British author and critic specialising in French literature.
WBryan Talbot is a British comics artist and writer, best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire, as well as the Grandville series of books. He collaborated with his wife, Mary M. Talbot to produce Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, which won the 2012 Costa biography award.
WMary Talbot is a British academic and author. She has written several well received academic works in critical discourse analysis and since 2009 has turned her hand to freelance writing. Her first graphic novel Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, published by Jonathan Cape in 2012 and illustrated by her husband Bryan Talbot won the 2012 Costa biography prize.
WClaire Tomalin is an English journalist and biographer, known for her biographies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft.
WChristie Watson is a British writer and retired nurse. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the Costa First Novel Award in the 2011 Costa Book Awards. Her second novel Where Women Are Kings also won critical praise.
WDame Jacqueline Wilson is an English novelist known for her popular children's literature. Her novels have been notable for featuring controversial themes such as adoption and divorce without alienating her large readership. Four of her books appear in the BBC's The Big Read poll of the 100 most popular books in the UK. Since her debut novel in 1969, Wilson has written over 100 books. In 2010, it was revealed that she is the most borrowed author in libraries across the UK.
WJeanette Winterson is an English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Some of her other novels have explored gender polarities and sexual identity, with later novels also exploring the relationship between humans and technology. She is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing.
WMoira Young is a Canadian children's novelist. Young was born in New Westminster, British Columbia.