Contributors

Miranda Popkey has written for Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books and The New Republic. She lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Topics of Conversation is her first novel.

Marion Poschmann was born in Essen in 1969. A prize-winning poet and novelist, she has won both of Germany's premier poetry prizes, has been twice shortlisted for the German Book Prize and won the 2013 Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.

Padgett Powell is a novelist who has taught writing at the University of Florida for over thirty years. His books include his dazzling first novel Edisto and most recently The Interrogative Mood.

Kate Pullinger was born in Canada, and moved to London in 1982 where she still lives. She is the author of Tiny Lies, a collection of short stories, and the novels When the Monster Dies and Weird Sister. She collaborated with Jane Campion on the novel of the film The Piano, and has written for film, television and radio. She is currently lecturer in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University.

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. The recipient of a "5 Under 35" award from the National Book Foundation, she teaches at Princeton University.

Dorit Rabinyan is bestselling author of the acclaimed Persian Brides and Strand of a Thousand Pearls. She is the recipient of the Itzhak Vinner Prize, The Prime Minister's Prize and the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Award. This book was named one of the ten best books of the year by Ha'aretz newspaper.

JS Rafaeli has worked as a copy writer, a brand consultant, researcher and booking agent. He currently plays in a band.

Nick Pope has two decades of experience working with leading companies such as Nike, Unilever, Gucci, M&S, and Lloyds Bank, helping them develop effective teams at all levels of their organisations. He has published with the British Academy of Management and in several industry trade journals. He currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with regular trips to the US and his native UK.

Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, is the only global company with leading positions in innovative medicines, eye care, cost-saving generic pharmaceuticals, preventive vaccines and diagnostic tools, over-the-counter and animal health products. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 131,000 full-time-equivalent associates and operate in more than 140 countries around the world.

Marie Phillips is the author of three novels, including the international bestseller Gods Behaving Badly, and is the co-writer of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series Warhorses of Letters. She has already had two midlife crises and there is still time for more.

Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini started his academic career in Italy and France as a bio-physicist and molecular biologist and is now Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona.

Jena Pincott is a science writer and the author of eight books, including Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy and Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes: The Science of Love, Sex & Attraction. Her titles have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, and Library Journal and have been translated in 18 languages. A writer with a background in biology, she has contributed to Scientific American, Psychology Today, Nautilus, The Oprah Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Brain World, among other publications. She has appeared on CBS The Early Show, Good Morning America, Big Think, Science Fantastic, and many other TV, radio, and podcast programs.
Jena writes about science and psychology topics that fly under the radar, from microbes in breast milk to the mysteries of working memory; from the biology of attraction, in humans and other species, to the psychology of the inner critic; from cutting-edge developments in medical technology to the scientist-activists who are transforming women's health and medicine. She has a soft spot for the quirky stuff.
Jena is also the founder of DeepThink Decks (deepthinkdecks.com), which publishes tools (card decks) to help kids have fun developing their critical thinking skills. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA with a dual concentration in media studies, and a M.A. from New York University with a focus on science in literature. She had been a senior editor at Random House and is a member of Science Writers of New York.
She lives in New York City with her husband and two STEM-loving daughters and writes science fiction whenever she gets a little free time.

Fernanda Pirie is Professor of the Anthropology of Law at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, where she spent the past 10 years working with colleagues in history and anthropology looking at legal systems from throughout human history, comparing and contrasting, and charting their influence on the modern world. Prior to academia she was a practising barrister.

Jill Elizabeth Pitkeathley, Baroness Pitkeathley, OBE (born 4 January 1940) is a British Labour Party member of the House of Lords.
Her first job was working for Manchester City Council as a trainee child care officer in 1961.
She worked in the voluntary sector, as chief executive of Carers National Association (now renamed Carers UK) for which she was awarded an OBE in the 1993 Birthday Honours. Mrs Pitkeathley was created a life peer as Baroness Pitkeathley, of Caversham in the Royal County of Berkshire on 6 October 1997.Since 1998 she has been chair of one of the lottery distributors, the New Opportunities Fund. In 2004, she was appointed chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). Lady Pitkeathley also chaired the Office for Civil Society Advisory Body until its abolition in March 2011.
Lady Pitkeathley was a founding member of ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. She is a trustee of Cumberland Lodge.