Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 and died on the 30th November 1900. He was an Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest.
Julia has always made up stories in her head, and until recently she thought everyone else did too. She grew up in London, one of eight children, including a twin sister. She married Dave, a dentist, in 1989, and they have four daughters. After the birth of the second, Julia went freelance and decided to try her hand at writing. Ten bestselling books later, it’s safe to say the gamble paid off! To date, Julia’s books have sold over half a million copies.
Guy Watson began farming organically at Riverford, South Devon, in 1985. What started out as a vegetable-delivery service for local shops soon morphed into a groundbreaking home-delivery box scheme that now has sister farms in Hampshire, Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire. Riverford has now become one of the country’s largest independent growers, certified by the Soil Association.
Renowned science writer Jonathan Weiner is a visiting professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, where he has taught frequently since 1996. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed ‘The Beak of the Finch’, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Book Prize for Science, and ‘His Brother’s Keeper’.
Antony Wild, although a native of Yorkshire, has spent much time in the Indian sub-continent, where he acquired a particular passion for Moghul cookery. He is the figure behind the revival of the East India Company and author of ‘The East India Tea Company Book of Tea’ and ‘The East India Company Book of Spices’
Michela Wrong is a distinguished international journalist, and has worked as a foreign correspondent covering events across the African continent for Reuters, the BBC and the Financial Times. Based on her experiences in Africa, In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz, won the PEN James Sterne Prize for non-fiction. I Didn’t Do It for You builds upon her shocking experiences, and focuses on Eritrea. In 2015, she published Borderlines, her first novel.
