Contributors

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than 45 countries, is the author of more than 50 works of fiction, poetry, critical essays and graphic novels, including The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye and The MaddAddam Trilogy. Her latest novel, The Testaments, is a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. She is the recipient of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize and the PEN Centre USA Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. Her latest collection is Old Babes in the Wood.

Katherine Ashenburg has worked as an academic, a CBC Radio producer and the Arts and Books editor of the Globe and Mail. She has written for the New York Times and her books include and The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die. She lives in Toronto.

Kalinda Ashton was born in Melbourne in 1978. She has been involved in student, union and community campaigns. She is an associate editor of Overland magazine, and a teacher of writing and editing. The Danger Game is her first novel.

Tariq Ashkanani is a solicitor and co-host of the writing podcast Page One. His debut novel, Welcome to Cooper, won the Bloody Scotland Debut Award 2022, as well as being shortlisted for both the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Capital Crime Fingerprint Award. His second novel, Follow Me to the Edge, was published in 2022. His upcoming novel, The Midnight King, will be published by Viper in 2025. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two sons.

Gaynor Arnold was born in Wales, but now lives in Birmingham. Her 2008 debut novel Girl in a Blue Dress (based on the marriage of Charles Dickens) was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize; and shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize. It was published worldwide and translated into several languages. Gaynor's short story collection Lying Together, partly based on her experiences as a social worker, came out in 2011 and was longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Her second novel, After Such Kindness (exploring the relationship between Lewis Carroll and his child-muse Alice) was published in 2012. Gaynor has also co-edited The Sea in Birmingham with Julia Bell.

Oana was born in Transylvania, to parents of Romanian, Greek and Yemeni background. After the fall of communism the family emigrated to Sweden. Oana has worked in the City of London as a macroeconomist, and as an advisor to the Romanian prime minister, but since 2018 she has lived on a Greek island, converting a heritage villa into a hotel.

Roberto Arlt was born in Buenos Aires in 1900, the son of a Prussian immigrant from Poznán, Poland. Brought up in the city's crowded tenement houses – the same tenements which feature in The Seven Madmen – Arlt had a deeply unhappy childhood and left home at the age of sixteen. As a journalist, Arlt described the rich and vivid life of Buenos Aires; as an inventor, he patented a method to prevent ladders in women's stockings. Arlt died suddenly of a heart attack in Buenos Aires in 1942. He was the author of the novels The Mad Toy, The Flamethrowers, Love the Enchanter and several plays.

Nina Renata Aron is a writer and editor living in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.

Alice Ash is a writer and maker of short films. Her story 'Eggs' was longlisted for the Galley Beggar Prize 2019, and her writing has been featured in Hotel, 3:AM Magazine, the TLS and Extra Teeth, among others. She is based in Brighton. Find her on Twitter as @aliceash_.

Kwame Anthony Appiah is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and has been President of the PEN American Center. Grandson of a British Chancellor of the Exchequer and nephew of a Ghanaian king, he spent his childhood in both countries, before studying Philosophy at Cambridge University. He is author of seminal works on philosophy and culture, including In My Father's House, The Honor Code and the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism. He lives with his husband in New York and New Jersey.

Find him on Twitter @KAnthonyAppiah
http://appiah.net/

David Appleby is a Practice Representative for the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors, a frequent lecturer and contributes to a number of journals.

Reinaldo Arenas was born in Holguín, Cuba, in 1943. His first novel, Singing from the Well, was awarded First Mention in Cuba's Cirilo Villaverde National Competition. It was to be his only book published in his native country. Both as a homosexual and a writer, he found himself persecuted by the Cuban government, and had to smuggle his work out of the country for publication in France. He left Cuba in 1980 and settled in New York, where he died of AIDS in 1990. He is the author of over 20 books, including novels, short stories and poems.