Sunday 13th September

Join Harry Mount, author of A Lust for Window Sills - a Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble-Dash, a funny, anecdotal history of architecture, for his personal view of Hampstead.

Harry is also the author of the international bestseller, Amo, Amas, Amat and All That - How to Become a Latin Lover [2006]. His previous book, My Brief Career [2004], told the story of his time as a libel barrister. He is also a contributing editor at Reader's Digest and writes regularly for the Spectator, the New Statesman, the Daily Mail, Country Life, Literary Review and the Times Literary Supplement.

Popular children's books Charlie Barley, the Kung Fu Katie series and Jonathan the Crocodile are all the result of Sally-Ann's fertile imagination. She has also written scripts for many well-loved animated children's series including Pingu, Angelina Ballerina and Mopatop's Shop.

Before writing her debut novel, When I was Joe, Keren David worked as a journalist on local and national papers, including the Jewish Chronicle and the Independent. The book tells the story of a teenage boy taken into police protection after witnessing a crime (to be published January 2010), with the sequel Almost True to follow in autumn 2010.

Gaby Halberstam, author of Blue Sky Freedom and The Red Dress, lived in South Africa until the age of fifteen before moving to the UK. She began writing stories at the age of five, and despite going on to qualify as a lawyer, always knew that she would prefer to write.

Dawn Moore is Head of King Alfred School.

Justin Somper is the best-selling author of the internationally acclaimed Vampirates sequence, which fuses pirate adventure and vampire myth. The books have sold over half a million copies in the UK and Ireland and are published worldwide. Justin is currently working on Book 5: Empire of Night, due to be published in 2010.

Julia Eccleshare, writer, broadcaster and lecturer is also the Guardian's Children's Books Editor and Co-director of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. She won the Eleanor Farjeon Award 2000 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to children's books. She is a founder member of the steering committee for the Children's Laureate, and a trustee of Reading is Fundamental and Listening Books.

David Weale is head of King Alfred Lower School.

PLEASE NOTE: This event has had to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances - apologies for any inconvenience.

Andy Stanton's first book You're A Bad Man, Mr Gum! was the overall winner of the 2007 Red House Children's Book Award and won the Blue Peter Book Award for The Most Fun Story with Pictures. Andy has been a film script reader, a cartoonist and an NHS lackey. He has many interests, but best of all he likes Radio 4, books and music.

Adele Geras is the author of the truly original reimagining of the classical story of Dido. She has written more than 90 books for children and young adults. Born in Jerusalem in 1944, Adele was educated at Roedean School and St. Hilda's College, Oxford, where she studied Modern Languages. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1976 she was a singer, an actress and a French teacher.

Author of the award-winning Jimmy Coates series of children's spy stories, Joe Craig has won legions of fans across the world. So come and experience The Joe Craig Show. His tall tales, improvised stories, and surprising theories about writing have enthralled and entertained audiences every bit as much as his Jimmy Coates books.

Sophie has illustrated five volumes of traditional tales, featuring stories from every continent. She will show you how she goes about turning typewritten words into lively, picture strewn pages. Then she will share with you a fantastic story, with no pictures accompanying it except the ones in your own minds eye... After that you can draw and paint, sew, glue, and make some images of your own... and take a piece of the story home, to stay with you forever!

Sophie Herxheimer was born in London in 1963. She grew up in a colourful house in South London. After A levels, Sophie went to Camberwell, and then Chelsea Schools of Art and studied painting. Since graduating she has worked in various ways and applications: all springing from painting itself.

The work consistently emerges from the same personal vocabulary of ideas, be it designing a stage set, or illustrating a book, or working on a collection of paintings and drawings towards an exhibition. Sophie weaves together elements of autobiography, and mundane domestic life, with surprising elements from fairy tales and other stories, sometimes dreams or the current news. Story is an important element of Sophie's work, as is imaginative observation and liveliness.

Sophie is married with two children and works in a studio at home in South London.

Finding Violet Park (January 2007), Jenny Valentine's first novel, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Jenny Valentine was inspired to write by the extraordinary people she met while working in a whole food shop in Primrose Hill. Her latest teen novel is The Ant Colony (March 2009) and her first collection of stories for younger children, Iggy and Me, came out in September 2009.

Julia Eccleshare, writer, broadcaster and lecturer is also the Guardian's Children's Books Editor and Co-director of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. She won the Eleanor Farjeon Award 2000 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to children's books. She is a founder member of the steering committee for the Children's Laureate, and a trustee of Reading is Fundamental and Listening Books.

Winners of our Short Story Competition will be announced by Amanda Craig, The Times, Geoff Martin, Ham&High and Louise Jacobs, LJCC.

The Competition:
Both children and adults were invited to take part in the festival's short story competition.

Festival organisers were looking for original, engaging, previously unpublished short stories with the opening line: It was early morning on Hampstead Heath...

Categories:
* Entrants aged 11-13 | 500-1000 words
* Entrants aged 14 -18 | 1000-1500 words
* Entrants aged 18+ | 1000-1500 words

The prize:
Winners will be announced at Ivy House on the opening day of the festival, Sunday 13 September, and have their work read aloud by a well-known name. Their stories will also be printed in the Ham&High on Thursday 17 September.

In partnership with the Ham&High Newspaper

Supported by Daunt Books

Esther Freud trained as an actress before writing her first novel Hideous Kinky (1991), which was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. In 1993 she was chosen by Granta as one of the Best of Young British Novelists. She has since written five more novels: Peerless Flats, Gaglow, The Wild, The Sea House, and most recently Love Falls (June 2007).

Geraldine D'Amico is the Director of Jewish Book Week.

Sebastian Faulks' new book A Week in December will be published later this year. He is also the author of ten novels and two works of non-fiction, including Human Traces, Engleby and Birdsong. He was appointed CBE in 2002, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He lives in West London with his wife, three children and a blue whippet.

Erica Wagner is both an author and Literary Editor of The Times. Her most recent book is Seizure (Faber and Faber).

Photograph of Sebastian Faulks by Muir Vidler