Born to an American musician father, and English mother, Jemma grew up in leafy Hertfordshire and studied Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge University and Broadcast Journalism at the University of Westminster. She began her career as a journalist at The Jewish Chronicle and now works freelance splitting her time between journalism, writing for stage, and prose. Her first play, Negative Space, was staged in 2009 at Hampstead's New End Theatre, receiving critical acclaim. The idea for After Before was first spawned after attending a SURF charity event organised by her husband, in aid of survivors of the Rwandan genocide. It was there that Jemma heard first-hand some of the lingering effects of the 1994 war.

Jonathan Green is a writer of speculative fiction, with more than seventy books to his name. Well known for his contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks, he has also written fiction for such diverse properties as Doctor Who, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Sonic the Hedgehog, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Moshi Monsters, LEGO, Judge Dredd and Robin of Sherwood. He is the creator of the Pax Britannia series for Abaddon Books and has written eight novels, and numerous short stories, set within this steampunk universe, featuring the debonair dandy adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver. He is also the author of an increasing number of non-fiction titles, including the award-winning YOU ARE THE HERO – A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. He has recently taken to editing and compiling short story anthologies, including the critically-acclaimed GAME OVER and SHARKPUNK, published by Snowbooks, and the forthcoming Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu. To find out more about his current projects visit www.JonathanGreenAuthor.com and follow him on Twitter @jonathangreen.

I was born into a working class Jewish family (yes, we do exist!) in north London and became active in radical politics in the 70s. In 1982, I went to Grenada and lived there on and off for the following four years, experiencing the revolution, the coup and subsequent US invasion and aftermath. For full details, see my Revo Blog. On my return to London, I worked as a finance officer for Jewish Women in London (an oral history project) and Women Focusing (a national women’s photography organisation) and took a diploma in photojournalism at London College of Printing. Together with two friends on the course, we formed a photojournalism collective, working in the not-for-profit sector. Over the years, I also had jobs as a shop assistant, farm labourer, life model and wig maker – amongst other things … I moved into the Shangri-La Housing Co-op in Peckham in 1989, providing the setting for my subsequent novels. Sadly, we had to move out of the co-op when the council repossessed the properties to turn them back into family homes. I was seven months pregnant at the time. As a result, the council had to re-house us and we moved to East Dulwich in 1995. Soon after my second son was born, I joined the East Dulwich Writers’ Group although I had no previous experience of writing fiction apart from an abortive attempt to crack the women’s magazine short story market several years earlier. (Each story would start sweet enough but then gradually turned dark and twisted. Clearly my inner voice calling out …) I wrote Nirvana Bites in the evenings in long hand lying on the settee and then typed it up in chunks using borrowed laptops, fitting it in round working as a part-time finance officer and wedding photographer, as well as parenting two young children.