Escalator Judges and Mentors
Tobias Hill
Poet and novelist Tobias Hill was born in London, England, on 30 March 1970.
He read English at Sussex University and spent two years teaching in Japan.
He is the author of the collections of poetry
Year of the Dog (1995),
Midnight in the City of Clocks (1996), influenced by his experiences living in Japan, and
Zoo (1998), which coincided with his tenure as Poet in Residence at London Zoo as part of the Poetry Places scheme administered by the Poetry Society. He is also the author of an acclaimed collection of short stories,
Skin (1997), which won the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.
Adaptations of his poetry and short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He has also worked as rock critic for the
Sunday Telegraph newspaper in London and as the poetry editor of the
Richmond Review. His fiction includes the novels
Underground, published in 1999, a dark story set on the London Underground system; and
The Love of Stones (2001), spanning six centuries in the tale of a long-lost jewel once owned by Elizabeth I. The book has been published in seven languages and in 11 countries and is being developed as a film by Granada Films. His third novel,
The Cryptographer, the story of a mysterious and charming quadrillionaire, who is the creator of the world's first great electric currency, was published in 2003.
His latest novel is
The Hidden (2009).
Tobias Hill lives in London and is Royal Society of Literature Fellow at Sussex University. In 2004, he was named as one of the Poetry Book Society's 'Next Generation' poets. His latest poetry collection is
Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow (2006).
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I have written several psychological thrillers, the most recent being The Murder Bird which came out in 2006. An earlier novel, Improvising Carla was praised in The Times: 'A darkly gripping psychological tale that cannot fail to hook. A haunting and completely credible tale. I thoroughly recommend it.' It was televised by Granada. The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction says, 'A strong sense of place and an unusual take on the crime genre are two characteristics of the novels of Joanna Hines.' Earlier I had written a historical trilogy set in Cornwall, and my most recent novel was a short one for late readers called One Mistake. I have also written articles and short stories, worked as a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and I regularly review crime fiction for The Guardian, and occasionally historicals in the Literary Review.
In January 2012 my first non fiction book is being published by Virago under my maiden name, Joanna Hodgkin. Amateurs In Eden, which is subtitled 'the story of a bohemian marriage', is a biography memoir of my mother Nancy, who was the first wife of Lawrence Durrell. It covers the years before 1947, when they lived in London, Corfu, Paris and Cairo. Non fiction is a new departure, but I have discovered that storytelling and readability lie at the heart of this, as much as in fiction.
Bernardine Evaristo
British writer Bernardine Evaristo is the author of six books and the co-editor of two anthologies.
She was born in Woolwich, south east London, the fourth of eight children, to an English mother and Nigerian father. Her father was a welder and her mother a schoolteacher. She was educated at Eltham Hill Girls Grammar School and the Rose Bruford College of Speech & Drama, and spent her teenage years acting at Greenwich Young People’s Theatre.
Her six books range in genre from poetry, verse-novels, a novel-with-verse, a novella and a full prose novel. She also reviews books for the national newspapers, has written drama and fiction for BBC Radio 4, co-edited two anthologies, teaches creative writing at universities and for other organisations, judges literary awards and has undertaken over 70 international trips and tours as a writer giving readings, workshops, courses and on visiting professorships. She supports other writers through individual mentoring and initiated the Free Verse report (2005) and The Complete Works project (2008-2010) – both with Spread the Word – to develop poets of colour in the UK.
The first monograph on her work,
Fiction Unbound by Sebnem Toplu, was published in August 2011 by Cambridge Scholars Press.
She has received several awards for her books, which have been a ‘Book of the Year’ in British newspapers and magazines 12 times, and
The Emperor’s Babe was a Times ‘Book of the Decade’ in 2009. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006, and she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2009.
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Katharine McMahon
Katharine McMahon is an internationally published novelist. Her books include The Crimson Rooms and the best-selling The Rose Of Sebastopol which was shortlisted for the Best Read Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards. Her new book, Season of Light, set during the French Revolution, is published in November. She has been an advisory fellow for the Royal Literary Fund, and has taught and mentored students in writing skills at the universities of Hertfordshire, Warwick and UCL.
She lives in Watford with her family, and serves as a magistrate on the West Hertfordshire Bench. She is currently a member of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. She has taught English and Drama in local schools, creative writing to university students and performed in local theatre, especially The Abbey Theatre, St Albans.
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Michelle Spring
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1947, Michelle Spring spent her childhood on Vancouver Island, and most of her adult life in Cambridge, England. Her first career was as an academic. A specialist in gender, Spring was Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Professor of Sociology at what is now Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Under the name of Michelle Stanworth she authored several academic books and articles.
In the 1990s, Spring and her family were stalked by a student who threatened their lives; when finally, after eighteen months, the siege was lifted, writing fiction seemed the only way to exorcise the ghosts of fear. She has been a full-time writer since 1997. Her six crime novels, beginning with
Every Breath You Take, have been translated into many languages, including French and German, and shortlisted for international awards.
In the Midnight Hour (2001), was awarded the Arthur Ellis Prize by the Crime Writers of Canada for Best Novel of the Year.
Spring currently holds a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge and is on the Executive Committee of the Crime Writers’ Association. She is in receipt of a grant from Arts Council England, East for the preparation of her seventh novel,
Sympathy for the Devil. She is also a member of The Unusual Suspects, a group of award-winning crime novelists who write and talk on everything from anaesthesiology to zealotry. An occasional contributor to
The Times,
The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and other newspapers, Spring has also appeared on television and radio, including Woman's Hour and BBC4's Battle of the Books.
Michelle Spring lives and works in Cambridge.
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