Tuesday 15th September

Martin Bell's A Very British Revolution, the definitive book about the expenses scandal rocking parliament, will be published in October 2009. One of the most distinguished foreign affairs reporters of his generation, Martin Bell was among those who defined the term "war correspondent". With just 24 days to go before the 1997 general election, he made the surprise announcement that he was leaving the BBC to enter politics. He stole the show with his anti-sleaze battle against MP Neil Hamilton. He now acts as an ambassador for UNICEF, and as an outspoken critic of the state of journalism today. His books include the Truth that Sticks: New Labour's Breach of Trust (2007).

David Rowan is editor of Wired magazine's UK edition, which launched in April 2009. He writes regularly for the comment pages of The Times. He has edited the Guardian's websites, made TV films for Channel 4 News, and written features for The Telegraph Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer and elsewhere.

Claudia Roden was born in Cairo. Starting as a painter, she was drawn to the subject of food partly through a desire to preserve a lost heritage. She continued to write about food with a special interest in the social and historical background of cooking. Her books include A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, The Food of Italy (Chatto and Windus) The Book of Jewish Food (Penguin Books) and Arabesque (Penguin Books).

Judith Jones is senior editor and vice president at Alfred A. Knopf. She is the author of The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food and the coauthor with Evan Jones (her late husband) of The Book of Bread, Knead It, Punch It, Bake It! and The Book of NEW New England Cookery. She also collaborated with Angus Cameron on The L. L. Bean Game and Fish Cookbook, and has contributed to Vogue, Saveur, and Gourmet magazines. In 2006, she was awarded the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jill Norman is a highly respected editor and author. Her culinary career began when she created the food and wine list for Penguin Books. As Elizabeth David's literary trustee she completed Mrs David's last work, Harvest of the Cold Months, and has compiled other volumes of her previously unpublished material. Jill's books are The New Penguin Cookery Book, available in paperback from Penguin; Herb & Spice, paperback available from Dorling Kindersley (now part of the Penguin Group) and Winter Food, hardback, published by Kyle Cathie Ltd.

After a successful career in law, Victoria Prever trained as a chef at Leith's School of Food & Wine and worked as a private caterer. A member of the Guild of Food Writers, she writes about restaurants and food for the Ham&High and Jewish Chronicle and teaches cookery privately and at various schools, including Leith's and The Cookery School.

Photograph of Claudia Roden by Tony French
Photograph of Judith Jones by Christopher Hersheimer

Lisa Jewell was born and raised in north London, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. Her first novel, Ralph's Party, was the bestselling debut of 1999. She is also the author of Thirtynothing, One-Hit Wonder, Vince & Joy, A Friend of the Family and 31 Dream Street (which won last year's Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance), all of which have been Sunday Times bestsellers. Her most recent book is called The Truth About Melody Browne.

Fiona Neill is a features writer for The Times Magazine and author and creator of its hugely popular Slummy Mummy column. After working abroad for six years, as a foreign correspondent in Latin America, she returned to the UK to become assistant editor at Marie Claire and then The Times Magazine. Brought up in Norfolk, she now lives in London with her husband and three children.

David Nicholls is one of the hottest writers in television, acclaimed for his adaptations of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and a modern day Much Ado About Nothing for the BBC, and Cold Feet for ITV. His debut novel Starter For Ten became one of the big hits of the year and his much anticipated third novel,One Day (June 09) was published to critical acclaim.

Olivia Lichtenstein's new novel, Things Your Mother Never Told You (Orion, September 2009) is a sharp, compelling and deliciously entertaining follow up to her acclaimed, award-winning debut Mrs Zhivago of Queen's Park. Olivia is also a BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker and the former editor of the BBC's Inside Story.

Photograph of Lisa Jewell by Iain Philpott

Susan Hill's novels and short stories have won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewelynn Rhys prizes, and many of them are set texts for GCSE and A levels. She is the author of Mrs de Winter, the sequel to Rebecca, and the ghost story, The Woman in Black, which was adapted for the stage and has been running in London for more than twenty years.

Mark Billingham is one of the UK's most acclaimed and popular crime writers. His series of novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has won him the Sherlock Award, the Theakston's Crime Novel Of The Year Award and have been nominated for five CWA Daggers. Mark has also been a successful stand-up comedian for twenty years. The Times describes him as "a massively talented comedian."

Frank Tallis is a clinical psychologist and author of the Dr Max Liebermann series - the stylish forensic crime thrillers set in fin-de-siecle Vienna - soon to be adapted into a BBC series. The central character is a Jewish detective and one of the most important themes in the books is anti-Semitism. Darkness Rising, Frank's most recent novel, explores Kabbalah and its teachings.

Juliet Solomon manages research at the Institute of Neurology and compiled the The Book of Regrets, an assortment of celebrities' regrets in aid of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Photograph of Susan Hill by Ben Granville
Photograph of Frank Tallis by Alain Longeaud

Tom Bower is a distinguished investigative historian, broadcaster and journalist. His most recent works are Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football and Gordon Brown. His books about the Nazis include Blood Money, Blind Eye to Murder: The Pledge Betrayed, The Paperclip Conspiracy and The Definitive biography of Klaus Barbie. He has also written biographies of Conrad Black, Mohammed Fayed, Richard Branson and Robert Maxwell.

In 1981, Philip Norman published his critically-acclaimed biography Shout! The Beatles in their Generation, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide. Autumn 2008 saw the publication of his most ambitious biography, John Lennon: the Life, which became an international bestseller. He has also written for London Times and the Sunday Times Magazine on iconic figures ranging fromLittle Richard to Rod Stewart. He has also written definitive biographies of the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly and Elton John.

Piers Plowright is a freelance broadcaster, lecturer and critic who 'appears' frequently on Saturday Review and Nightwaves. From 1968 to 1997 he worked for BBC Radio as a Drama and Feature maker. He has won three Italia Prizes and numerous Sony Awards. In 1998 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2007 he was made an Audio Luminary at the Chicago Third Coast Radio Festival.

Photograph of Philip Norman by Jessica Norman

Kathy Lette's ten bestselling novels have been translated into 17 foreign languages and published in more than 100 countries. Two of her novels, Mad Cows and Puberty Blues, have been made into motion pictures. She is a regular contributor on TV, from Jonathan Ross and Richard & Judy to BBC Breakfast and Newsnight. Her last novel, How To Kill Your Husband and other Handy Household Hints is being made into a TV series.

Photograph of Kathy Lette by Nicky Johnstone

Lynn Barber has published two volumes of her celebrated interviews, Mostly Men and Demon Barber. Having studied English at Oxford University, she began her career in journalism at Penthouse, and has since worked for a number of major British newspapers and for Vanity Fair. She currently writes for the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. Lynn's fascinating memoir
An Education was published in paperback earlier this year.

In the name of journalism Tanya Gold has 'auditioned' for Big Brother, swum with sharks, wing walked and danced with the stars of Strictly Ballroom. Tanya writes for The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Times and The Independent and is known for her forthright views and insightful perspectives.

Amanda Craig, became an award-winning young journalist in the 1980s. She is the author of six novels including Foreign Bodies (1990), A Vicious Circle (1996), In a Dark Wood (2000) and Love In Idleness (2003). Her new novel, Hearts and Minds (2009) is a sequel to both A Vicious Circle and Love in Idleness. She is also the children's book critic for The Times.

Joseph Connolly was born in Hampstead, and has lived here ever since. He has worked in publishing and journalism and for fifteen years was the proprietor of The Flask Bookshop in Flask Walk. He has published eleven non-fiction works including books on book collecting, the English seaside, the 1950s, Christmas and biographies of P.G.Wodehouse and Jerome K. Jerome. He is also the bestselling author of ten novels, including Summer Things, which was made into a film starring Charlotte Rampling. The latest of them is Jack the Lad and Bloody Mary. Joseph is the Ham&High's restaurant critic.

Geoff Martin is the Editor of the Ham&High newspaper.

In this poetry workshop, a variety of stimulating exercises and texts will get the creative juices flowing. Participants will have the opportunity to both write and read out some of their work for feedback in the session. All you need is a notebook and pen and an interest in trying out something new.

Miriam Halahmy has published fiction for adults and children and two poetry collections. She is a writing mentor and workshop facilitator and many of her participants have published works and been placed in national and international competitions. Her work featured at Jewish Book Week, 2009 and she is a regular reviewer for the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other publications.

Dan Cruickshank is an architectural historian and television presenter. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a member of the Executive Committee of the Georgian Group and on the Architectural Panel of the National Trust. His recent work includes the television programmes and accompanying books Around the World in 80 Treasures (2005) and Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture (2008). He lives in Spitalfields, London.

The Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane MP has been active in politics, the trade union movement and socialist policy groups for more than three decades. After his debut as a BBC reporter and youngest ever President of the National Union of Journalists, MacShane worked for the international trade union movement in Geneva. He became MP for Rotherham (South Yorkshire) in 1994. He became a Minister at the Foreign Office in 2001, Minister for Europe from 2002-2005, was sworn as a Privy Councillor in June 2005 and now serves on the Council of Europe and NATO Parliamentary Assemblies. Throughout, Denis has been one of Labour's strongest supporters of European integration and social Europe.

He writes books, pamphlets and articles on a variety of European and international topics, including biographies of Francois Mitterrand and Edward Heath. His latest book Globalising Hatred - The New Antisemitism (Weidenfeld and Nicolson October 2008), followed his chairmanship of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism. The paperback version comes out in September 2009.

Gerry Gable is the Editor of Searchlight.

Tappy's show comes hot from premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Hosted by Roger Pomphrey, ex guitarist with the Eurhythmics and now an award winning film director for more than 20 years, who made the ultimate Hendrix documentary called
The Making of Electric Ladyland.

This is the ultimate fly-on-the-wall rock interview, based on the book Rock Roadie by the roadie who worked with showbiz's biggest names, Tappy Wright. Funny, revealing and scary in equal parts, Tappy Wright's autobiographical Spoken Word Performance blows open the world of rock, including an explosive revelation about Jimi Hendrix's death.

We conclude with an audience Q&A session with Tappy. Produced by Rod Weinberg, showbiz impresario who re-united the Animals for a World tour and managed and promoted some of rock's best known acts.