Contributors

Kenzaburo Oe is Japan's most important living writer. Born in 1935 on the island of Shikoku, Oe studied literature at Tokyo University before spending the sixties in Paris where he came under the influence of Sartre. After his debut novel, he wrote a string of books dissecting contemporary Japan, including Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!, The Pinch Runner Memorandum and the essay collection Hiroshima Notes, on the impact on Japan's national psyche of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and his eldest son Hikari, who was born with severe brain damage; many of the narrators in Oe's fiction have brain-damaged children, most notably in the semi-autobiographical novel A Personal Matter. He won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ali Nolan is a journalist and writer based in Utah, USA. As the former features editor and current contributor for Runner's World, she is active in empowering women in the running world, having spoken at the Under Armour Women's Panel, Donna Marathon Pre-Race Dinner, and
other events. She has completed two road marathons, a trail marathon, and other races.

After leaving Oxford, Edward Norfolk worked as an accountant with Coopers & Lybrand before setting up his own bottled LPG company, now part of Esso. He then set up
a waste management company before selling it to Viridor in 2002. He is currently involved in ten private equity start-up companies as an adviser, and spends a lot of his time running his family estates. As the Duke of Norfolk, he is also the Earl Marshal and was responsible for delivering the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III.

Nathan Oates's debut collection of short stories, The Empty House, won the 2012 Spokane Prize. He is an associate professor at Seton Hall University, where he teaches creative writing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his family. A Flaw in the Design is his debut novel.

Born in 1891, Kimon Nicolaïdes was a renowned Greek American art teacher, author and artist, who taught at New York's Art Student's League for fifteen years. He had a natural talent for teaching and became an inspiration to a generation of devoted young artists, as well as leaving behind the concrete system of art teaching presented in this book. He died in 1938.

Flann O'Brien was a pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he spent most of his life in Dublin, where he worked as a civil servant and died in 1966. Best known for The Third Policeman and At Swim-Two-Birds, he is one of the most influential Irish writers of the twentieth century, regarded by many as its answer to Nabokov, and his books are dazzling works of farce, satire, folklore and absurdity.

Alex O'Brien is a London based science writer and thinker. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, BBC, New Scientist and The Times. Shortlisted for Best Newcomer in 2016 by the Association of British Science Writers where she is now vice-chair, O'Brien is an advocate for early critical thinking; in 2022 she founded the Young Science Writer Award, aimed at engaging state-educated young people toward a career in STEM related subjects. The Truth Detective is her first book.

Colin O'Brien is an Irish sports writer based in Rome. His passion for cycling and the European professional racing scene was ignited when Marco Pantani and the world's best riders came to Dublin with the 1998 Tour de France. He contributes to leading publications worldwide, including Rouleur, Peloton, Cyclist, and ProCycling.

John O'Connell is a writer, editor and researcher who has written for the Guardian, The Times, the New Statesman and TimeOut. He is the author of, among others, For The Love of Letters, The Book of Spice, and the acclaimed Bowie's Books.

Richard O'Connor is the author of five books, Undoing Depression, Active Treatment of Depression, Undoing Perpetual Stress, Happy At Last, and Rewire. For fourteen years he was executive director of the Northwest Center for Family Service and Mental Health, overseeing the treatment of almost a thousand patients per year. He is a practicing psychotherapist, with offices in Canaan, Connecticut, and New York City, and he lives with his family in Lakeville, Connecticut.

James J. O'Donnell, author of Augustine:Sinner and Saint, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, and the forthcoming Pagans, is an academic turned administrator who uses his wide-ranging world travels to inform and inspire his writing. Educated at Princeton and Yale, long on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, he is now Provost of Georgetown University.

Peter O'Donnell began his career working on several major pre-war comics, Tiger Tim, Chips and Captain Moonlight. During the 1950's he became involved in strip cartoons and eventually created his revolutionary Modesty Blaise, syndicated in more than 42 countries. The strip led to a series of bestselling novels about Modesty and her faithful lieutenant, Willie Garvin, all published by Souvenir Press: Modesty Blaise, Sabre Tooth, I, Lucifer, The Impossible Virgin, Pieces of Modesty, A Taste for Death, The Silver Mistress, Dragon's Claw, The Xanadu Talisman, The Night of the Morningstar, Dead Man's Handle and his most recent collection Cobra Trap.

As well as being a respected journalist and editor focussed on retail and information technology, Penelope Ody qualified as a medical herbalist in the 1980s and practised part-time for 11 years. She has written more than 20 books on herbal topics, edited The Herb Society's journals from 1988 to 1994 and has written on herbal and health topics for several consumer magazines.

She frequently gives talks on herbal topics for both the general public and specialist groups and since 2002 she has held day courses on various herbal subjects at her home in Hampshire.

Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents' sweet shop as the youngest child of a large family. She has been a teacher, web editor, mystery customer and postwoman. What Was Lost won the Costa First Novel Award 2007 and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and longlisted for the Orange and Man Booker prizes. She is the author of two further novels – The News From Where You Are and Mr Lynch's Holiday.