Contributors

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.

Yishai SaridYishai Sarid was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1965. He served as an intelligence officer for the Israeli Defense Force before going on to study law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Nowadays, Yishai Sarid is an active lawyer and arbitrator in Tel Aviv. Alongside his legal career, he has written six novels, which have been translated into ten languages and have won literary prizes including the Bernstein Prize and Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

Jean Said Makdisi is a Palestinian writer and scholar. She is the author of the acclaimed memoir Teta, Mother and Me. She lives in Beirut.

Anna Katharina Schaffner is a burnout coach, clinical hypnotherapist and cultural historian. She is the author of The Art of Self-Improvement: Ten Timeless Truths, Exhausted: An A-Z for the Weary and a novel, The Truth About Julia. She has written for the TLS, the Guardian and Psychology Today. Her research has featured on BBC Radio 4 and in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Philosophie Magazine, and Psychologies.

Michael Rosen is one of the best-loved figures in the children's book world, renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and educational campaigner. His bestselling books include We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen's Sad Book and Quick Let's Get Out of Here. His books for adults include Good Ideas, how to be your child's and your own best teacher and his memoir, So They Call You Pisher!. He was Children's Laureate from 2007-2009, and received the Eleanor Farjeon Award for services to children's literature in 1997. He is Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths University of London. His book to help children (or anyone) write poems is What is Poetry?

Caskey Russell is from Seattle Washington, and has lived in Oregon, Iowa, Wyoming, and New Zealand. He is a father, a professor, a musician, and an enrolled member of the Tlingit Nation (Eagle / Kooyu Kwáan) of Alaska.

Nicholas Royle was born in Manchester in 1963. He is the author of five novels, including Antwerp. An assiduous champion of the short story, he has written more than 100 tales, which have appeared in a variety of anthologies and magazines. His latest collection is Mortality, shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. He has edited twelve anthologies, including A Book of Two Halves and The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories. He lives in Manchester with his wife and two children, where he teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Juan Rulfo (1917-1986) is the author of what is probably the most important novel in Mexican literature. Pedro Páramo was published in 1955 and went on to be translated into over forty languages, sell over a million copies in English alone and initiate an entire literary movement. Rulfo's other literary works are The Burning Plain and The Golden Cockerel. He also worked as an anthropologist and photographer.