Claire-Louise Meadows

Freelance Journalist, Editor & Activist

We're wise to the fact that Pippa is being thrust in our faces, and we don't like it. We like it even less when she's thrust into our faces without the talent to justify it.

Tom Ward

British writer and graduate of Newcastle University, recently named the recipient of the Norman Mailer Student Writing Award 2012, in conjunction with British GQ

What are the chances of really becoming a commercially and critically successful author in 2013? For me personally, the idea of being a down-and-out writer living in a bedsit hasn't had to become a reality just yet. This is due to still living at my parents' home.

Abigail Tarttelin

Proud author of GOLDEN BOY and FLICK, Books Editor at Phoenix Magazine

Coralie Colmez's idiosyncratic combination of Gallic good looks, quiet intellect, a warm, unassuming personality, and an ultra cool dress sense that veers between hipster and high fashion is magnetic.

Sue Porto

Chief Executive of the charity Beanstalk

The pleasures and benefits of reading are still denied to many children - in 2012, one in eight left primary school unable to read to the required standard. Beanstalk trains volunteers to give one-to-one support to children who have fallen behind with their reading, using the delights of storytelling to enthuse and enrich them.

Abigail Tarttelin

Proud author of GOLDEN BOY and FLICK, Books Editor at Phoenix Magazine

As the earth slows, our protagonist, a teenage girl, falls in love for the first time. Set against the backdrop of a dying world, the story is a time capsule, the reader's reaction heightened because we know that inevitable doom awaits.