Sophie Haydock is an author, editor and journalist (Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian), based in Folkestone, Kent. She is also curator of Folkestone Book Festival.

Her debut novel, The Flames – about the women who posed for the scandalous artist Egon Schiele in Vienna a century ago – was longlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award and won the Impress Prize for New Writers.

The Flames has been translated into seven languages and named by The Times as one of the Best Historical Fiction Books of 2022.

As a journalist, Sophie has interviewed leading authors, including Hilary Mantel, Maggie O’Farrell, Bernardine Evaristo, Sally Rooney and Amy Tan.

Sophie worked for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory. She is a judge for various short story competitions, including Bath Short Story Award and Society of Authors’ ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award.

Her own story, Mudlarks, was recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and is available online.

Sophie’s second novel, Madame Matisse, about the women who were integral to the life of the French artist Henri Matisse, will be published by Doubleday in February 2025.

Sophie regularly features on podcasts, appears at literary festivals including Hay and Cheltenham, and speaks to large audiences about art and literature at venues such as the National Gallery, Sotheby’s and The Trouble Club. She’s available to interview other authors and has done so for live events at Hatchards and Fane productions.

Her Instagram account @egonschieleswomen has a community of over 114,000 followers.

For more information, visit sophie-haydock.com

Maggie Brookes is an ex-journalist and BBC TV producer turned novelist and poet.

Her novel The Prisoner’s Wife was published by imprints of Penguin Random House in the UK and USA / Canada in spring 2020. It has since been published in The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Poland and Italy, with more translations underway.

The Prisoner’s Wife is based on an extraordinary true story of love and courage from the 2nd world war, first told to her in a lift. Her next novel, Acts of Love and War based in the Spanish civil war, is due for publication in August 2022.

Maggie made historical documentaries for BBC TV and has published six collections of poetry as Maggie Butt, including the historical collection Ally Pally Prison Camp (Oversteps Books 2011). 

She holds a PhD from Cardiff University and taught Creative Writing at Middlesex University for 30 years, also under her married name Maggie Butt. She lives in London.

Sarah Smith is a writer from Glasgow whose debut novel, Hear No Evil, was published in 2022 and is inspired by the landmark case of Jean Campbell, the first deaf person to be tried in the High Court.

Hear No Evil was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel 2022, the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown 2022, and the CWA Historical Dagger 2023. It was Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month in February 2023.

Sarah’s fiction and poetry has appeared in a wide variety of journals and anthologies. She has an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow and was a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee in 2019.

After a visit to Helmsley Castle at the age of 10, Mark Turnbull bought a pack of cards featuring the monarchs of England. The card portraying King Charles I fascinated him.

Van Dyck’s regal portrait of the King and the fact that he was executed by his own people were the beginnings of Mark’s passionate interest in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms that has lasted ever since.

He thoroughly enjoys bringing this period to life through writing fiction and contributing to understanding of it via non-fiction works. His most recent books are biographies: ‘Charles I’s Private Life’, an exploration of the man behind the monarch, and ‘Prince Rupert of the Rhine; King Charles I’s Cavalier Commander. He has produced articles for magazines, local newspapers and online educational sites. A Joint-Chair of The Battlefields Trust (North Region) Mark is also is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Mark also produces a War of the Three Kingdoms podcast called ‘CavalierCast – The Civil War in Words’. This is the only known podcast solely dedicated to the civil wars. It explores a variety of topics with leading historians and authors.