Linda Porter has a D.Phil from the University of York and spent ten years lecturing in New York before returning with her American husband and daughter to England, where she embarked on a complete change of career. For more than twenty years she worked as a senior public relations practitioner in a major telecommunications company.

The attractions of early retirement were too good to miss and she returned to writing historical non-fiction.  Her first book, ‘Mary Tudor: the first queen’, was published by Piatkus (now part of Little Brown) to critical acclaim in 2007.  Her second book, ‘Katherine the Queen: the remarkable life of Katherine Parr’ (Macmillan, 2010) was similarly well-received.

Linda’s third book , (also for Macmillan), ‘Crown of Thistles: the fatal inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots’, about the rivalry between the Tudors and Stewarts and how this family feud shaped the history of Britain, was published in 2013 to great critical acclaim. She regularly reviews for History Today, BBC History and The Literary Review, appears on radio and TV and has spoken in many marvellous homes and palaces throughout England and Scotland.   ‘Royal Renegades: the children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars’ was published in October 2016. Her latest book is ‘Mistresses: sex and scandal at the court of Charles II, published in April 2020.

Lesley Downer is an author, novelist, journalist and occasional broadcaster. She has just finished the fourth in The Shogun Quartet, her quartet of novels set in nineteenth century Japan during the fifteen years when the country was convulsed by civil war and transformed from rule by the shoguns into a society that looked to the west.
The Shogun’s Queen, to be published November 2016, is a prequel, chronologically the first of the four. It begins in 1853 with an event every bit as shocking as if Martians were to invade Earth: the arrival of four monstrous Black Ships spouting smoke and manned by hairy-faced giants – Commodore Perry and his American troops. It’s the true story of Atsu, plucked from obscurity at the age of twenty in a brave attempt to save Japan and sent to the Women’s Palace, where three thousand women live and only one man can enter: the shogun.
The second novel of the quartet, The Last Concubine, was shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year 2009 and translated into 30 languages. Lesley has also written two more novels, The Courtesan and the Samurai and The Samurai’s Daughter, and non-fiction, including Geisha: The Remarkable Truth Behind the Fiction and Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha who Seduced the West, the story of the model for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
Lesley is also a journalist and travel writer, gives lectures and teaches Creative Writing at City University in London. She writes book reviews for the New York Times Book Review, the Literary Review and the TLS and the occasional feature for the Sunday Times Magazine.

Jenny Barden is an artist-turned-lawyer-turned-writer with a love of history and adventure. A fascination with the Age of Discovery led to extensive travels in the Americas, and much of the inspiration for her first two novels has come from retracing the steps of early adventurers in the New World. She is currently working on a thriller centred in the court of Queen Elizabeth at the time of the Spanish Armada. Jenny has recently moved to West Sussex where she enjoys long country walks with her dog, as well as visiting castles and other places of historic interest.

Jean is the author of seventeen novels all set in East London where she was born. She also a retired district nurse and university lecturer.

She has published one East London series with Orion featuring pre-NHS district nurses in the post-war years and the introduction of the NHS. She has published a further two series with Atlantic Publishing. One set in the 19th century and her current series features the Brogan family during the dark days of WW2.

She is also a regular writing workshop leader at the Romantic Novelist Association and the Historical Novel Society conferences as well as being the Romantic Novelist Association’s Educational Lead. In addition Jean had undertaken hundreds of speaker’s engagements and workshops with WIs, U3As and on cruise ships.

        

Jason Hewitt is a writer, playwright and actor. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, and an MA in Creative Writing. He also has many years’ experience as a bookseller and as a marketing manager in the publishing industry. His debut novel, The Dynamite Room, was longlisted for The Desmond Elliott Prize for New Writing 2014 and the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. His second novel, Devastation Road, was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2016. He was born in Oxford and now divides his time between Bath and London.

 

James Burge is a maker of factual television programmes and a writer. His latest book, DANTE’S INVENTION, is a narrative biography which explores the life of the poet and how it relates to his great work of fantasy-fiction, the Divine Comedy. It is designed to appeal to those who are not familiar with Dante’s work as much as to those who are.
James’s many films on science and the arts include episodes of Timewatch, and Horizon for the BBC as well, for Channel Four, the acclaimed series about the Industrial Revolution, The Day The World Took Off and Starkey’s Monarchy.  His fascination with the Middle Ages dates from his study of medieval philosophy as a student. It led him to make Strange Landscape, BBC series about  medieval culture, which contained dramatisations of Dante’s journey through Heaven and Hell. He has also dramatised the writings of the eccentric thirteenth-century English friar, Roger Bacon. His previous book, Heloise and Abelard: a twelfth century love story, was published five years ago to outstanding reviews and reasonable sales.