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After gaining his doctorate by growing grass on coal tips, Patrick Harding enjoyed over 25 years as a university lecturer. He now runs numerous courses and works with the BBC on programmes about herbal medicine, wild flowers, mushrooms, and trees. Patrick is the author of ‘Gem Mushrooms’ and ‘How to ID Edible Mushrooms’, and has had years of experience, lecturing and leading groups on fungal forays. He was recently filmed with Richard and Judy for a BBC 2 series.

Antony Haynes is Director of the highly acclaimed Nutrition Clinic on Harley Street. He advises many health journalists and has written for or been quoted in many of the top newspapers and magazines. The Evening Standard voted him one of the best practitioners in London. He has taught advanced nutrition courses at all the major nutrition colleges in the UK, including the ION, for the last ten years.

Seb Hunter was born in 1971 and went to a variety of schools in England before throwing it all away to become a rock ‘n’ roll star, at which he eventually failed. Since then he has worked in the book trade and currently lives in London.

Claudia Hammond was born in 1971 and has a degree in applied psychology and a Msc in health psychology. She regularly presents her own distinctive series on Radio 4 including ‘Brain Waves’, ‘Raging Hormones’, ‘The ABC of Vitamins’ and ‘Sense the Difference’. She lectures part-time in psychology for the Open University and her research in health psychology has been published. She is a frequent contributor to the Guardian and the Independent.

Walter Hooper was born in Reidsville, North Carolina. He first met C.S Lewis in 1963 and following Lewis’s death he assisted Owen Barfield in managing Lewis’s literary estate. Now a trustee of the Lewis estate. Hooper is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on the life and works of C.S. Lewis. He has edited and written introductions for dozens of Lewis’s religious books. A former Anglican priest, he is now a Catholic and has lived in Oxford since 1964.

Jan Siegel, who also writes as Amanda Hemingway, has already lived through one lifetime – during which she travelled the world and supported herself through a variety of professions, including those of actress, barmaid, garage hand, laboratory assistant, journalist and model. Her new life is devoted to her writing, but she also finds time to ride, ski and attend the opera.

Stuart Harrison was born and grew up in England. He lived in New Zealand for many years before returning to England to write his first novel. He now lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and their two young sons where he writes full time. He travels often to both New Zealand and England, both of which he misses.

Philip Hensher has written eleven novels, including The Mulberry Empire, the Booker shortlisted The Northern Clemency, King of the Badgers, Scenes from Early Life, which won the Ondaatje Prize in 2012, The Friendly Ones and A Small Revolution in Germany. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bath Spa and lives in south London and Geneva.

John Harding is one of Britain’s most versatile contemporary novelists. He is the author of five novels. Born in a small village in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, he was educated at the village school and read English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. His latest novel, The Girl Who Couldn’t Read (2014) is a sequel to Florence and Giles that can be read as a standalone novel by those who haven’t read the earlier book.