Contributors

The Dutch scholar Sjeng Scheijen is an internationally acclaimed expert on Russian art and has curated several important exhibitions in London, Groningen and elsewhere. He divides his time between Amsterdam and Moscow where he is cultural attaché at the Netherlands Embassy.

Lauren Scheuer is an animal lover, an illustrator and an author.

Her illustrated memoir, Once Upon a Flock, is the true and riveting tale of a small backyard flock including Lucy, the special needs hen and Wicked Lil' White. Full of drama and suspense, the book is enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Moriz Scheyer was the principal essayist and arts editor for the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Vienna's major paper, until forced to flee the city in 1938. He was a friend of Stefan Zweig and of many key figures in Viennese and Parisian cultural life. After surviving the war first in Paris and then in hiding in the Dordogne, he died in France in 1948.

David Schmader is an American writer known for his solo plays, his writing for the Seattle newsweekly The Stranger, and his annotated screenings of Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls.

A practitioner of mindfulness and meditation for over 30 years, Barb Schmidt is the author of the internationally bestselling book The Practice. Over the years, she has been on over 100 retreats and studied with teachers around the world from Deepak Chopra to the Dalai Lama. In 2011, she founded the non-profit organization Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life to bring mindfulness teachings to the community and make them accessible to everyone. She has taught meditation courses at Nova Southeastern University, and currently she offers classes and workshops at Florida Atlantic University as part of the Peace Studies Program's community outreach.

Nelson Schwartz has been a writer at the New York Times for a decade and covers economics. Before that, he wrote about Wall Street and banking for The Times, and also served as European economic correspondent in Paris.

Delmore Schwartz (1913 – 1966) was an American poet and short story writer. He was an influence on Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, immortalised in songs by Lou Reed and John Berryman. He died destitute in a New York hotel in 1966.

Dr Laura Schwartz is a Fellow in History at St Hugh's College, Oxford. She has written on many aspects of the history of feminism in modern Britain.

Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist at Washington University in Saint Louis. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT and has served as chief editor of the scholarly journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. She lives in Saint Louis.

Jeremy Scott was born into the eccentric decaying upper classes, he had a spectacularly successful life in advertising in the 1960s and 1970s until reinventing himself, first in Provence and then as an ascetic, whose life was saved by Marcus Aurelius 10 years ago.

Roger Scruton is a philosopher whose books include Art and Imagination (1974), The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), The Philosopher on Dover Beach (1990), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Beauty (2009), How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism (2012) and Our Church (2012). In 2010 he delivered the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews on 'The Face of God'. He has been described, by Daniel Hannan, MEP, as 'The man who, more than any other, has defined what conservatism is.'

Matthew Scully (born March 30, 1959) is an American author, journalist, and speechwriter.

Jeremy Scahill is an unembedded, international journalist. He has reported extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations. He reported from Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO bombing and spent years covering the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic's government and the rise of a neoliberal regime backed by the United States. He has also reported from Nigeria, where he and colleague Amy Goodman exposed the role of the Chevron oil corporation in the massacre of protesting villagers in the Niger Delta. Traveling around the hurricane zone in the wake of Katrina, Scahill exposed the presence of Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans and his reporting sparked a Congressional inquiry and an internal Department of Homeland Security investigation. Scahill has won numerous awards, including the prestigious George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting and numerous Project Censored Awards. He was among the only western reporters to gain access to the Abu Ghraib prison when Saddam Hussein was in power and his story on the emptying of that prison won a (US) Golden Reel for "Best National Radio News Story" of 2002. Blackwater is his first book.

Tiziano Scarpa was born in Venice in 1963. He is a poet, novelist, playwright and essayist. He has written a number of acclaimed novels including Eyes On the Broiler and Western Kamikaze. Serpent's Tail have published his 'cultural guide to Venice', Venice is a Fish. His radio play Pop Corn received international critical acclaim and was aired by the BBC and other European radio stations. He regularly speaks at creative writing conferences and writes for Italian national newspapers. In 1997 he won the 49th Italia Prize for his writing. Stabat Mater won the 2009 Strega Prize, the Italian equivalent of the Booker. He lives in Venice.