A Love Letter to Europe: An outpouring of sadness and hope - Mary Beard, Shami Chakrabati, Sebastian Faulks, Neil Gaiman, Ruth Jones, J.K. Rowling, Sandi Toksvig and others

About Frank Cottrell BoyceHolly JohnsonJ.K. RowlingMargaret DrabbleMelvyn BraggPete TownshendSimon CallowTony RobinsonTracey EminWilliam Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prizewinning White Mughals The Last Mughal which won the DuffCooper Prize and the Hemingway and Kapuscinski Prize-winning Return of a King and his recent bestseller Anarchy. Dame Margaret Drabble is the author of nineteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage The Millstone and most recently the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby and The Dark Flood Rises. She was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime''s Distinguished Service to Literature. Simon Callow is an actor director and writer. He was born in London and made his London debut in ''The Plumber''s Progress'' in 1975. He has performed in numerous theatres taking the lead roles at the RSC and the National Theatre and his film appearances include ''Amadeus'' ''A Room with a View'' and ''Four Weddings and a Funeral''. He made his directorial debut with the film of Carson McCuller''s ''Ballad of the Sad Cafe'' and has directed several new plays in fringe theatres and two operas. He has published two autobiographical books: ''Being an Actor'' and ''Shooting the Actor''. Tracey Emin was born in 1963 to an English mother and Turkish father and grew up in Margate. She left school at 15 but later studied Fine Art at Maidstone and went on to the Royal College of Art. She is now an internationally renowned artist whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the world. Although known as a visual artist Tracey Emin''s confessional writings have always formed the backbone to her work and in 2005 she published her memoir Strangeland drawing together new and revised work from the previous 25 years. In 2007 she was elected as a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts where she is now a Professor of Drawing and in 2013 she was appointed CBE. J.K. Rowling is best-known as the author of the seven Harry Potter novels which were made into eight blockbuster films. She is also the author of Casual Vacancy a standalone novel for adults and under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith writes the Cormoran Strike crime novels. Holly Johnson is an English artist musician and writer best known as the lead vocalist of Frankie Goes to Hollywood Pete Townshend is the lead guitarist and principal songwriter of The Who - one of the most influential rock bands of the 20th century selling over 100 million records worldwide - and the composer of the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia. Melvyn Bragg is a writer and broadcaster whose first novel For Want of a Nail was published in 1965. His novels since include The Maid of Buttermere The Soldier''s Return A Son of War Credo and Now is the Time which won the Parliamentary Book Award for fiction in 2016. His books have also been awarded the Time/Life Silver Pen Award the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award and have been longlisted three times for the Booker Prize (including the Lost Man Booker Prize). He has also written several works of non-fiction including The Adventure of English and The Book of Books about the King James Bible. He lives in London and Cumbria. Will Hutton is Principal of Hertford College Oxford and a columnist for the Observer. His bestselling books include The State We''re In The World We''re In Them and Us and with Andrew Adonis Saving Britain. Philip Ardagh is the Roald Dahl Funny Prize-winning author of over 100 children''s titles. Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Newnham College Cambridge and the classics editor of the TLS. Her books include the bestselling Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii The Parthenon Confronting the Classics and SPQR. Brian Catling was born in London in 1948. He is a former Professor of Fine Art at the Ruskin School Oxford and is an acclaimed performance artist and sculptor. His Vorrh trilogy is followed this year by Earwig which is being filmed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic. Shami Chakrabarti is Britain''s leading human rights campaigner. She is the author of On Liberty an impassioned defence of human rights published in 2014 and Of Women a feminist argument for affirmative action in 2017. Chris Cleave is a New York Times #1 bestselling novelist whose books are published in forty countries. His debut novel INCENDIARY won the Somerset Maugham Award among others. His second the Costa-shortlisted THE OTHER HAND was a global bestseller and sat in the New York Times Top Ten for over a year (under the US title Little Bee). Both books were shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers'' Prizes. He lives in Kingston-upon-Thames with his wife and three children and welcomes readers at facebook.com/ChrisCleaveBooks www.chriscleave.com and twitter.com/chriscleave. Peter J Conradi is the author of the widely acclaimed biography Iris Murdoch: A Life. Historical novelist Lindsey Davis is best known for her novels set in Ancient Rome including the much-loved Marcus Didius Falco series although she has also written about the English Civil War including in 2014 A Cruel Fate a book for the Quick Reads literacy initiative. Her examination of the paranoid reign of the roman emperor Domitian began with Master and God a standalone novel leading to her new series about Flavia Albia set in that dark period. Her books are translated and have been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. Her many awards include the Premio Colosseo (from the city of Rome) and the Crime Writers'' Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. Most recently she was the inaugural winner of the Barcino (Barcelona) International Historical Novel Prize.