Contributors

Elena Poniatowska is Mexico's greatest living novelist. She currently lives in Coyoacán, a quiet suburb of Mexico City where the likes of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and an exiled Leon Trotsky famously resided. Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Poniatowska has published novels, non-fiction books and essays and been translated into over twenty languages. She is one of the founders of La Jornada, the feminist magazine Fern, publishing house Siglo XXI and Mexican national film institute Cineteca Nacional. For over fifty years she was a close friend of Leonora Carrington's, until the latter's death in 2011.

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.

Paul Rambali is a writer and broadcaster and was a rock journalist for the NME during the punk era and editor of The Face from 1980-1987. The author of two books about France and works including It's All True – In the Cities and Jungles of Brazil, a personal odyssey exploring issues of development and culture in the Third World, he also ghost-wrote Phoolan Devi, the autobiography of India's Bandit Queen, which has been published in 26 countries. He now lives in Paris.

Zoë Rankin grew up in Scotland. She studied International Relations with Arabic before going on to qualify as a teacher. She spent many years travelling in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and eventually settled in New Zealand. Her father was in mountain rescue in Scotland, and so her passion for the outdoors grew early. She spends a lot of time hiking and cycling with her husband and two young children in New Zealand, and the more remote locations inspired the idea for her debut novel The Vanishing Place.

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.

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.

Dr Anna Ploszajski is a materials scientist, storyteller, author, podcaster, speaker, presenter, skills trainer, trumpeter, English Channel swimmer, feminist, knitter, walker and border collie dog mum, originally from Bedford, now settled in Walthamstow, East London. Her debut popular science book, Handmade: A Scientist's Search for Meaning Through Making was published in 2021.