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Mike Gayle was born and raised in Birmingham. Mike has written for a variety of publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian and Cosmopolitan. Mike became a full time novelist in 1997 following the publication of his Sunday Times top ten bestseller My Legendary Girlfriend, which was hailed by The Independent as 'Full of belly laughs and painfully acute observations.' Mike is the author of 19 novels including Mr Commitment, Turning Thirty and Wish You Were Here. His books have been translated into over 30 languages.

You can read more about Mike's books here

Tiffany started in the publishing industry more than twenty-five years ago as a copy editor for many of the Big Six (back then). For the last fifteen-plus years she has worked as a developmental editor directly with authors from across genres as well as through major publishing houses. Her books include a long-held passion project, Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. Under her pen name, Phoebe Fox, she authored six novels, including A Little Bit of Grace and The Way We Weren’t, released with Berkley/Penguin.

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Paul Rapacioli is a moderator, writer and founder of the news site The Local which for millions of readers a month publishes news from Sweden, and eight other European countries, in English. He's the director of the Fojo Media Institute at Linnaeus University in southern Sweden. In his non-fiction book, Good Sweden, Bad Sweden, Paul analyzed the mechanisms that have made Sweden a target for international populism and nationalism. Paul Rapacioli has been a board member of the Stockholm Writers Festival since 2019 and our moderator from year one.

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Lisa brings both an analytical and creative approach to everything she does. Her background in public health, statistics, and informatics means she embraces methodical approaches to writing and creating books. After launching her first campaign to over $10k on Kickstarter and then subsequently, helping over 100 other authors do the same, Lisa discovered that her positive energy and spirit is best served when helping others achieve their dreams. Lisa is the author of X number of children’s books including, We walk through the forest, and Ruby and the off-road rally.

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Tasha Suri is the award-winning author of The Books of Ambha duology, The Burning Kingdoms trilogy, What Souls Are Made Of, and Doctor Who: The Cradle. She has won the Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds) from the British Fantasy Society and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her debut novel Empire of Sand was named one of the 100 best fantasy books of all time by TIME magazine. When she isn’t writing, Tasha likes to cry over TV shows, buy too many notebooks, and indulge her geeky passion for reading about South Asian history. She lives with her family in a mildly haunted house.
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Author of the No 1 Irish Bestseller, This is My Sea, Miriam Mulcahy is a freelance journalist who contributes to The Irish Times. Writer and editor, Miriam lives in Kildare. Her first book was nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards and was one of The Irish Times books of 2023.

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Ayesha founded APL in 2007. Before becoming an agent she held several editorial positions, including most recently as a senior editor at Farrar Straus and Giroux. She is on the board of Art Omi and the AALA (Association of American Literary Agents) where she founded the Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and helped launch the non-profit Literary Agents of Change. Her client roster includes Ibram X. Kendi, Patricia Engel, Danielle Evans, Matthew Salesses and Lisa Ko.

Sophie met her agent, Caroline Hardman, at SWF19. From that meeting she eventually signed a two-book deal with Hachette. Her first book out, The Lamplighters Bookshop, is an historical ‘enemies-to-lovers’ fiction set in 1899 York. Evelyn Seaton, an aristocratic daughter of a gambling father, suddenly made destitute with her mother. Eve secretly applies for a bookshop assistant position, but ends up competing with the charming yet secretive William. Sophie works at Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time. When she’s not writing YouTube scripts for millions of viewers, she retreats to the turn of the century and writes historical novels.

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Author of the No 1 Irish Bestseller, This is My Sea, Miriam Mulcahy is a freelance journalist who contributes to The Irish Times. Writer and editor, Miriam lives in Kildare. Her first book was nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards and was one of The Irish Times books of 2023.