Joanne Harris is also known as Joanne M. Harris Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French author, whose books include fourteen novels, two cookbooks and many short stories. Her work is extremely diverse, covering aspects of magic realism, suspense, historical fiction, mythology and fantasy. She has also written a DR WHO novella for the BBC, has scripted guest episodes for the game ZOMBIES, RUN!, and is currently engaged in a number of musical theatre projects as well as developing an original drama for television. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and in 2022 was awarded an OBE by the Queen. Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion'. She also spends too much time on Twitter; plays flute and bass guitar in a band first formed when she was 16; and works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.

Ethel Portnoy komt uit een Russisch-Joodse familie die naar de Verenigde Staten is geëmigreerd. Ze groeide op in de Bronx te New York. Portnoy studeerde Frans en Spaans en haalde op haar twintigste haar doctoraal Frans. In 1950 vertrok ze naar Europa en ontving een beurs voor de Universiteit van Lyon. In die periode ontmoette ze onder andere Rudy Kousbroek en Simon Vinkenoog. Ze kwam in aanraking met het werk van de Vijftigers. Portnoy werkte voor de Unesco, maar besloot in 1962 zich geheel te wijden aan het schrijven. Ze publiceerde in weekbladen als Haagse Post en Vrij Nederland en ook in NRC Handelsblad. Veel van haar verhalen spelen zich af in de Bronx en gaan over multiculturisme en integratie. Samen met Hanneke van Buuren en Hannemieke Postma richtte Portnoy het literair-feministische tijdschrift Chrysallis op. Ze publiceerde veel over vrouwelijke auteurs.

Waris Dirie (Somali: Waris Diiriye, Arabic: واريس ديري‎) (born in 1965) is a Somali model, author, actress and human rights activist. In 1997, Waris abandoned her modeling career to focus on her work against female circumcision. That same year, she was appointed UN Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation(FGM).

Alice Babette Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. She was born into a middle-class Jewish family (her father had been a Polish army officer) and attended schools in both San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time she also studied music at the University of Washington. She met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived. Together they hosted a salon that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse, and Braque. Acting as Stein's confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until Stein published her memoirs in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It became Stein's bestselling book. Source: Wikipedia

Pat Conroy (1945 - 2016) was the New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs and seven novels, including The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Lords of Discipline. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature. Born the eldest of seven children in a rigidly disciplined military household, he attended the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. He briefly became a schoolteacher (which he chronicled in his memoir The Water Is Wide) before publishing his first novel, The Boo. Conroy lived on Fripp Island, South Carolina until his death in 2016. Conroy passed away on March 4, 2016 at his home from Pancreatic Cancer. He was 70 years old at the time of his death.

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Norwegian descent, who rose to prominence in the 1940's with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was Shot Down Over Libya. Today the story is published as A Piece of Cake. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by the Saturday Evening Post for $900, and propelled him into a career as a writer. Its title was inspired by a highly inaccurate and sensationalized article about the crash that blinded him, which claimed he had been shot down instead of simply having to land because of low fuel. His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach. He also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, usually with a dark sense of humour and a surprise ending. Many were originally written for American magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker, then subsequently collected by Dahl into anthologies, gaining world-wide acclaim. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories and they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death. His stories also brought him three Edgar Awards: in 1954, for the collection Someone Like You; in 1959, for the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, for the episode of Tales of the Unexpected based on "Skin".

Esther Gerritsen (1972) is a Dutch novelist, columnist and screenwriter. Since her 2000 debut with Bevoorrecht bewustzijn (Privileged Consciousness), Gerritsen has been considered one of the best authors in the Netherlands and makes regular appearances on radio programs and at international literary festivals such as Litquake and Wordfest. Her novels Superduif (Superdove, 2010), Dorst (Craving, 2012), Roxy (2014) and De Trooster (The Comforter, 2018) were all shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize. In 2005 she was awarded the BNG prize for her second novel Normale dagen (Ordinary Days, 2005) and in 2014 she was awarded the Frans Kellendonk prize for her body of work. Gerritsen writes a popular weekly column in the VPRO TV guide and she had the honour of writing the Dutch Book Week gift in 2016 with a print run of 700,000 copies. She is currently making a name for herself as a screenwriter for film and TV. She wrote the scenario for Instinct (Halina Reijn, 2019), which was the opening film at the Dutch National Film Festival, was praised and lauded at international filmfestivals such as Locarno, Toronto and London and is the Dutch entry for the 2019 Oscars. She is a co-writer of the new TV series Red Light, which will premiere in 2020 featuring Maaike Neuville, Halina Reijn and Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones).

Novelist Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester, England in 1959. She was adopted and brought up in Accrington, Lancashire, in the north of England. Her strict Pentecostal Evangelist upbringing provides the background to her acclaimed first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. She graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and moved to London where she worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press. One of the most original voices in British fiction to emerge during the 1980s, Winterson was named as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" in a promotion run jointly between the literary magazine Granta and the Book Marketing Council. She adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990 and also wrote "Great Moments in Aviation," a television screenplay directed by Beeban Kidron for BBC2 in 1994. She is editor of a series of new editions of novels by Virginia Woolf published in the UK by Vintage. She is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to many newspapers and journals and has a regular column published in The Guardian. Her radio drama includes the play Text Message, broadcast by BBC Radio in November 2001. Winterson lives in Gloucestershire and London. Her work is published in 28 countries.

Alexandra David-Néel (October 24, 1868 - September 8, 1969) was a French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer. She is most known for her visit to the forbidden (to foreigners) city of Lhasa, capital of Tibet (1924). She was born in Paris, France and died in Digne, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. She wrote more than 30 books, about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels. Her well-documented teachings influenced the beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and philosopher Alan Watts. Her real name was Louise Eugenie Alexandrine Marie David. During her childhood she had a strong desire for freedom and spirituality. At the age of 18, she had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. In 1890 and 1891, she traveled through India, returning only when running out of money. In Tunis she met the railroad engineer Philippe Néel, whom she married in 1904. In 1911 Alexandra traveled for the second time to India, to further her study of Buddhism. She was invited to the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeon Tulku. She became Sidkeong's "confidante and spiritual sister" (according to Ruth Middleton), perhaps his lover (Foster & Foster). She also met the thirteenth Dalai Lama twice in 1912, and had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism—a feat unprecedented for a European woman at that time. In the period 1914-1916 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the Tibetan monk Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion, and whom she would adopt later. From there they trespassed into Tibetan territory, meeting the Panchen Lama in Shigatse (August 1916). When the British authorities learned about this—Sikkim was then a British protectorate—Alexandra and Yongden had to leave the country, and, unable to return to Europe in the middle of World War I, they traveled to Japan. There Alexandra met Ekai Kawaguchi, who had visited Lhasa in 1901 disguised as a Chinese doctor, and this inspired her to visit Lhasa disguised as pilgrims. After traversing China from east to west, they reached Lhasa in 1924, and spent 2 months there. In 1928 Alexandra separated from Philippe. Later they would reconcile, and Philippe kept supporting her till his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Digne, and during the next 10 years she wrote books. In 1937, Yongden and Alexandra went to China, traveling there during the second World War, returning to France only in 1946. She was then 78 years old. In 1955 Yongden died. Alexandra continued to study and write till her death at age 100.

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Marguerite Yourcenar, original name Marguerite de Crayencour, was a french novelist, essayist, poet and short-story writer who became the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française (French Academy), an exclusive literary institution with a membership limited to 40. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1947. The name “Yourcenar” is an imperfect anagram of her original name, “Crayencour.” Yourcenar’s literary works are notable for their rigorously classical style, their erudition, and their psychological subtlety. In her most important books she re-creates past eras and personages, meditating thereby on human destiny, morality, and power. Her masterpiece is Mémoires d'Hadrien, a historical novel constituting the fictionalized memoirs of that 2nd-century Roman emperor. Her works were translated by the American Grace Frick, Yourcenar’s secretary and life companion. Yourcenar was also a literary critic and translator.

Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Isak Dinesen, John Hawkes, Bertha Harris and Anaïs Nin. Writer Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho. Barnes played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. Since Barnes' death, interest in her work has grown and many of her books are back in print.