Maude Apatow is a student, actress and writer. Her work has appeared on websites such as Rookiemag, HelloGiggles, and Teen Vogue. She co-starred in the films Knocked Up and This Is 40. She is addicted to technology even though she knows it’s destroying her.
Edith has been at Radio 1 since 2003 and also became part of the BBC 6Music family in 2012. She’s a massive music fan and fanatical gig goer. Her love and passion for film has allowed her to interview some of the biggest and most important names in film both for her radio shows and many TV specials.
Other work has included BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury, T In The Park, Reading and Leeds, BBC Two’s Rough Guide to the World, Sky One’s Big Bash Comedy Awards, RISE for Channel 4 and hosting the BAFTA film awards red carpet for BBC Three for the past five years.
Amanda Byram is one of Ireland’s biggest exports. In 1999 she began presenting the TV3 morning show in Ireland, and she then moved to British TV, hosting The Big Breakfast on Channel 4. Amanda currently hosts Total Wipeout for CBBC, which was voted Best Gameshow at the 2010 TV Choice Awards.
2012 saw Amanda present two exciting new shows for SKY1: The Angel and Don’t Stop Me Now. Amanda was also part of the team including Denise van Outen and Fearne Cotton that trekked Machu Picchu to raise awareness for Breast Cancer Care, which was documented for ITV2.
Melanie C has released six solo albums. She achieved over three million album sales as well as reuniting with the Spice Girls on tour. Her theatrical debut in the West End show Blood Brothers was well received by critics; earning five-star reviews, a nomination for Best Actress in a Musical at the prestigious Laurence Olivier Awards, and Evening Standard Theatre Awards shortlist for the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer.
Whilst working on album number five, Andrew Lloyd Webber asked Melanie to join Superstar, the primetime TV show looking for the new Jesus to star in the UK and Ireland arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. She took the role of Mary during the arena tour alongside Tim Minchin as Judas Iscariot.
As a television personality, renowned photographer and entrepreneur, Amanda de Cadenet has evolved her body of work with an intriguing perspective and uncanny ability to render the truth across the art of storytelling.
Currently, de Cadenet can be seen as the host of The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, an ambitious series that aims to explore, nurture and empower the modern woman through thought-provoking discussions and candid interviews with notable female personalities. Beyond hosting her interview series, de Cadenet is also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer who garnered critical attention as the youngest woman to shoot a Vogue magazine cover. Having photographed many of the most influential figures across pop culture, de Cadenet is best known for her intimate portraits of women which reflect her eye for true beauty from behind the lens. De Cadenet’s work can also be seen in the glossy pages of publications like Harper’s Bazaar, as well as in her published ten-year compendium, Rare Birds, which documents and humanises her encounters with a variety of pop culture icons. Originally from the UK, de Cadenet currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.
Gemma Cairney currently presents the weekend breakfast show on BBC Radio 1 and hosted the 2013 BBC Three live Glastonbury coverage alongside Greg James. She presented BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Breakfast Show with Trevor Nelson, for which they picked up a Silver Sony award in 2010 for Best National Breakfast Show, and her BBC Radio 1 documentary, Bruising Silence, won a Sony Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2013 for Best Documentary or Feature.
Gemma presented her first BBC Three documentary, The Riots: The Aftermath. Her second documentary for the channel, Dying for Clear Skin, highlighted the damaging effect of skin conditions and the risk of depression caused by treatment medication. Gemma was also seen on the channel’s debate show, Free Speech, discussing issues such as benefits, body image and road safety for cyclists.
Gemma has recently finished a series on the History of Feminism for BBC Learning, which aired on BBC Two in May 2013.
Despite her self-confessed ‘knock knees’, Bolton lass Sara left school with four A-levels for a career in modelling and was soon scouted for television. Since her first TV job in 1994, she’s been all over the telly – from show-jumping reality show Only Fools And Horses and Top Of The Pops to MTV and Channel 4 shows like The Big Breakfast. Sara joined Radio 1 in 1999 where she co-hosted the Saturday lunchtime show, followed by the Breakfast Show.
As well as raising her three children she can now be found hosting radio shows across both Radio 1 and Radio 2 as well as popping up on various shows including Have I Got News For You. She also has a weekly column in the Sunday Mirror magazine, Notebook.
James Dawson is the award-nominated author of dark teen thrillers Hollow Pike, Cruel Summer and Say Her Name (Hot Key Books – May 2014). He grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. He later turned his talent to journalism, interviewing luminaries such as Steps and Atomic Kitten before writing a weekly serial in a Brighton newspaper.
Until recently, James worked as a teacher, specialising in PSHCE and behaviour. He is most proud of his work surrounding bullying and family diversity. His first non-fiction book, Being a Boy (Red Lemon Press) tackles puberty, sex and relationships in a frank and funny fashion.
James writes full time and lives in south London. In his spare time, he STILL loves Doctor Who and is a keen follower of horror films and connoisseur of pop music.
Not only author and illustrator of the Darcy Burdock series (Random House), Mistakes In The Background, Ugly Shy Girl and Echoes (Harper Collins), Laura also resurrects her words on the stage, performing poetry and short stories spanning festivals to bookshops; from the E4 Udderbelly, Latitude Festival and Glastonbury to the London Literary Festival, 5x15 and the BBC Proms. Named one of the top ten literary talents by The Times and one of the top twenty hot faces to watch by ELLE magazine, Laura continues to stir up the literary universe with her passionate, contemporary and imaginative way with words. She has performed her work on CBeebies, Newsnight, BBC Breakfast, Woman’s Hour and each of the BBC’s respective radio channels 1–6, and has been commissioned by Radio 1, 2 and 4. Laura is on the advisory panel at The Ministry Of Stories, has judged the John Betjeman Poetry Prize, is embarking on her fourth year of mentoring with the charity First Story and has been a BAFTA judge. She is currently working on her second book in the Darcy Burdock series, working on a film script and song writing (for others, of course!).
Jenny Eclair is a stand-up comic and writer. She is the author of three novels: Camberwell Beauty, Having a Lovely Time and Life, Death and Vanilla Slices. She has also had a number of comedy books published including Chin Up, Britain and Wendy: The Bumper Book of Fun for Women of a Certain Age.
She pops up on the telly now and then and can sometimes be heard losing Just a Minute on Radio 4. Other radio writing credits include On Baby St and Twilight Baby.
She was an intrepid contestant on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, coming third in 2010.
Having appeared on the BBC’s Grumpy Old Women series, she co-wrote two Grumpy Old Women Live shows, both of which went into the West End. A third live show is in production.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor is a singer, songwriter and model, widely known to the British public for the past fifteen years, and has earned a place amongst pop royalty as a legendary and quintessentially British siren and starlet. Having performed throughout her childhood and teenage years, Sophie’s break came with the indie rock band Theaudience in the late 90s. A couple of years later, returning to music as a solo artist, she shot straight to number one in the UK charts with her debut solo single ‘Groovejet’.
Sophie has since achieved international success, releasing four top-selling albums. 2013 sees the release of her fifth album, produced by singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt. The album sees Sophie take a decidedly different musical direction.
Sophie is married to The Feeling bassist Richard Jones. The couple have three children.
Caroline Flack is best known for hosting the hugely popular Xtra Factor alongside Olly Murs. She anchored two series of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here Now and Gladiators for Sky One alongside Ian Wright.
A huge music fan, Caroline presented her own seven-part series for ITV2, Indigo2, where she interviewed some of the biggest names in the music industry. She co-hosted the Capital FM Breakfast Show and provided amusing banter as Johnny Vaughan’s morning sidekick. Her love for music translated perfectly into presenting E4’s Music Zones. Caroline spends her free time DJing and attending festivals. Originally from Norfolk, Caroline trained as an actress and dancer before focusing her energies on TV presenting.
Kristin Hallenga started CoppaFeel! with her twin sister Maren one month after her breast cancer diagnosis at 23. Discovering a lump in her boob in June 2008, Kris went to her GP, only to be sent away. Within weeks Kris was appearing on TV and in national press sharing her story and raising money for a campaign that would prove to save lives and keep other young people from the same fate as hers. She won the Pride of Britain award with a Downing Street reception. After a secondary breast cancer diagnosis, Kris is not cancer free – and perhaps never will be. Whenever she’s not in the presence of doctors, she’s pouring her heart and soul into making a success of CoppaFeel!, not only refusing to let cancer wreck her party, but refusing to let it ruin yours too. To find out more go to www.coppafeel.org.
Best known for her hugely successful BBC Three documentaries, Cherry is insightful, witty, challenging and compassionate about the subjects she covers, with a genuine desire to give voice to the true character of the contributors she encounters. Cherry’s documentaries for BBC Three include Cherry Has a Baby, Cherry Goes Dating and Cherry Gets Married (2010), Is Breast Best? (2011), a six-part series in 2012, Cherry Healey: How to Get a Life, and a second six-part series in 2013, The Year of Making Love.
With a Degree in Drama Education/Drama for Social Change from Central School of Speech and Drama, Cherry has a particular interest in women’s ever-changing roles in society – giving light to new cultural trends in a (sometimes painfully!) honest and entertaining way. Whilst studying, she set up a company teaching dance to kids at risk of exclusion in community centres. She is a drama, hip-hop and break-dance teacher, having herself competed in several national competitions (and has also been a backing dancer for the infamous Ice T!). Cherry has also written for several publications including Grazia, You Me Baby magazine, and Cellardoor online, and has a unique and funny style that appeals to a wide audience.
Will Hill is the author of the bestselling Department 19 series, and has contributed short stories and novellas to a number of award-nominated anthologies. He was a juror for the inaugural Hot Key Books Young Writers Prize and the 2013 Kitschies Awards.
He grew up in the north-east of England and worked as a bartender, a bookseller, and a door-to-door charity worker in California before quitting a job in publishing to write full time. He lives in east London with his girlfriend.
Rufus Hound is a comedian, presenter and actor. You may have seen him in The Wedding Video, winning Let’s Dance for Sport Relief dressed up as Cheryl Cole or as the eponymous hero of CBBC’s Hounded. He hosts Radio 4’s Sony Award-winning My Teenage Diary and most recently took over as Francis Henshall in The National Theatre’s One Man, Two Guvnors. Of course, it may be equally true that you have no idea who he is, and no one would blame you for that.
Amy Huberman was born in Dublin, and is a graduate of UCD and the Dublin Institute of Technology. She is an actress and a novelist.
She made her first appearance on Irish television in the RTE drama On Home Ground and went on to star in The Clinic (RTE) for which she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress at the IFTA Awards in 2009. Amy has also appeared in several films including A Film With Me In It opposite Dylan Moran and Mark Doherty, Redux directed by P.J. Dillon, and Stella Days starring Martin Sheen. She has also appeared in the TV comedy sketch show Your Bad Self for RTE, and most recently took the female lead in two series of Comedy Central’s popular sitcom Threesome.
Amy has also written two bestselling novels, Hello Heartbreak (Penguin, 2009) and I Wished For You (Penguin, 2012).
Jameela Jamil recently took on Radio 1’s The Official Chart Show, making her the first female presenter to host the show solo since its inception. Jameela began her presenting career in 2008 on the E4 Music Zone. In 2012 she featured in E4’s cult series, Playing It Straight. Jameela launched her first clothing range, JAM by Jameela Jamil, in 2012 with very.co.uk, and she was nominated for columnist of the year at both the prestigious PPA Awards and the BSME Awards for her monthly column in Company magazine. Jameela has also fronted a TV advertising campaign for international make-up brand Maybelline and has done fashion shoots with magazines including American and UK Vogue, InStyle and Esquire.
Maureen Johnson was recently crowned the 2012 Queen of Teen in the UK – but, as it turns out, she is American. She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during a massive snowstorm. After a little dalliance with astronomy (she had a glow in the dark star chart) and archaeology (she had a little shovel), Maureen declared her intention to become a writer at the age of eight or nine or so. She is the New York Times bestselling author of ten YA novels (including Suite Scarlett, Scarlett Fever, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, The Name of the Star, and The Madness Underneath). She has also done many collaborative works, such as Let It Snow (with John Green and Lauren Myracle), and The Bane Chronicles (with Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan). She writes frequently on the subject of Young Adult literature for many publications, and is well known for her online presence on Twitter (@maureenjohnson). Maureen lives in New York, and online on Twitter (or at www.maureenjohnbooks.com). She’s not giving that crown back.
Alex is the co-host of the BBC’s flagship magazine programme The One Show alongside Matt Baker and Chris Evans. Alex has also appeared as a panellist on 8 Out of 10 Cats and co-presented Let’s Dance for Comic Relief for the third year running. In 2011 she was a semi-finalist on Strictly Come Dancing, and 2012 saw Alex dance at Buckingham Palace on The One Show.
A fluent Welsh speaker, Alex’s television career began working for Welsh Channel S4C, and she went on to present a variety of shows for the channel. In 2009 Alex took part in The Magnificent Seven, a BAFTA-winning series which saw seven celebrities travel to a ranch in Arizona to learn how to become cowboys. Whilst in the Wild West she recorded a spin-off children’s series called Alex and the Cowboys, also for S4C. Alex went on to present BBC Wales’ contribution to the Children in Need network programme from the Millennium Stadium.
In Summer 2010, Alex landed The One Show role and she hasn’t looked back since. She presents the daily magazine show from London and has become a mainstay on the channel, presenting Eurovision results and Let’s Dance for Comic Relief for BBC One.
Marian Keyes is a hugely successful Irish novelist, born in Limerick in 1963. She was brought up in a home where a lot of oral storytelling went on; however she studied law and accountancy. She finally started writing short stories in 1993 ‘out of the blue’. Marian is now published in thirty-three languages and has written articles for various magazines and other publications. Her novel Anybody Out There won the British Book Awards award for popular fiction and the inaugural Melissa Nathan prize for Comedy Romance. This Charming Man won the Irish Book award for popular fiction. In 2012, she published Saved by Cake, which combines recipes with autobiography, novel The Mystery of Mercy Close and ebook short, Mammy Walsh’s A–Z of the Walsh Family.
Having left her home town of Dublin at 17, Radio 1’s Queen of Dance Annie Mac has spent the last decade carving out a career as a tastemaker, talent-finder and international DJ.
Annie currently hosts the prestigious Friday night 7–9pm slot on Radio 1, helping the nation to start the weekend. She also presents the 10pm–midnight Radio 1 show on Sunday evenings.
She is also known for championing cutting-edge new artists and DJs through her own brand ‘Annie Mac Presents’.
AMP, which started out as a club night at Fabric in London, now hosts stellar line-ups personally curated by Annie on international stages, tents at major festivals and club nights throughout the UK. The Annie Mac Presents compilation is one of the biggest albums in the dance music calendar each year.
Her TV work has included presenting the music series Sound for BBC Two as well as fronting the iTunes Festival and Ibiza Rocks for Channel 4.
Sarra Manning has been a fashion, lifestyle and entertainment journalist for over fifteen years. Her writing career started on the music paper Melody Maker and involved a long stint on the legendary teen mag J17. She then worked on the launch of and edited Elle Girl and What To Wear, as well as consulting on a number of magazines including The Face, Look and More. Sarra also writes for Grazia, Red, The Guardian, Stylist, Fabulous, Stella, You Magazine, and InStyle.
Her first adult novel, Unsticky, was Heat magazine’s book of the week. Her other adult novels are You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me and Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend. Sarra is also the queen of UK YA fiction. Her bestselling teen novels include Adorkable, Guitar Girl, Let’s Get Lost and the iconic Diary Of A Crush trilogy. Sarra has both an adult novel It Felt Like A Kiss and a YA title, The Worst Girlfriend In The World set for publication in 2014.
Sarra lives in North London with her beloved Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Miss Betsy, and prides herself on her unique ability to accessorise.
Julie Mayhew is an actress-turned-writer who still acts but mostly writes. She is author of the novel Red Ink (Hot Key Books), which features the character Melon from her story; was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award for her most recent radio play, A Shoebox Of Snow; and is co-founder and host of quarterly short story event The Berko Speakeasy.
Davina McCall was born in London in 1967 and currently hosts hit series The Million Pound Drop, Long Lost Family and Stepping Out. In addition, Davina has been the face (and hair) for the L’Oréal brands Garnier and Nutrisse for the past ten years and is currently the UK’s Number 1 fitness DVD franchise. Davina also starred in the BBC documentary Let’s Talk Sex, looking at how sex education is taught in Britain, and hosted all eleven series of Big Brother for Channel 4.
In October 2012, Davina, along with Gwyneth Paltrow, Alan Carr, Dr Christian and Cancer Research UK, launched the UK’s version of the epic US charity fundraising show Stand Up to Cancer, hosting over six hours of TV for Channel 4 and raising £7million … and counting! She is also an active supporter and campaigner for the charities Focus 12 and Action Medical Research.
Sarah Millican has fast established herself as a household name since winning the 2008 if.comedy Best Newcomer Award (formerly the Perrier Award) for her debut solo stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Crowned The People’s Choice: Queen of Comedy at the 2011 British Comedy Awards, Sarah has completed two sell-out national tours, playing to over 200,000 people, and she will embark on her third tour in the autumn of 2013, performing over 140 dates across the UK. Sarah’s debut DVD, Chatterbox Live, became the biggest selling stand-up DVD by a female comedian of all time.
This year, Sarah was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance for her own series on BBC Two, The Sarah Millican Television Programme. The show combines stand-up inspired by what she has seen on TV as well as unique interviews with television stars who have impressed her. Filming has just wrapped on the third series. Other TV appearances include QI, Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and The Graham Norton Show.
SiMitchell is a professional artist from the UK. He loves cartoons, punk music, his lady and his cat! He also loves to draw and spray paint silly things. He has been producing artwork for clients such as Green Day, The Midnight Beast, Mcfly, E4 and RockSound among many many others.
Lee Monroe was born in London, but spent a short time living by the sea with her family when she was a teenager. She moved back to the heart of the city as soon as she could, and now lives in London.
Lee was an obsessive reader as a child, and still is. She works in publishing and has written fiction for children and adults, including a paranormal trilogy under her own name for young adults, called Dark Heart, and more recently a contemporary romance called Love is a Number.
Caitlin Moran wrote her first novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, at the age of fifteen. At sixteen she joined music weekly Melody Maker, and at eighteen briefly presented the pop show Naked City on Channel 4. She wrote as columnist on The Times – both as a TV critic and also in the most-read part of the paper, the satirical celebrity column ‘Celebrity Watch’ – winning the British Press Awards’ Columnist of The Year award in 2010 and Critic and Interviewer of the Year in 2011.
The eldest of eight children, home-educated in a council house in Wolverhampton, Caitlin read lots of books about feminism. Caitlin isn’t really her name. She was christened ‘Catherine’. But she saw ‘Caitlin’ in a Jilly Cooper novel when she was thirteen and thought it looked exciting. That’s why she pronounces it incorrectly: ‘Catlin’. It causes trouble for everyone.
Born in America, Patrick Ness now lives in London. He is the author of seven novels, a short story collection, varied journalism and radio plays. You might have heard of his trilogy Chaos Walking, his latest book for adults The Crane Wife, which came out earlier this year, or even A Monster Calls, which became the first book ever to win both the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie Medals in 2012. His books are published in over twenty languages and among others Patrick has won the Carnegie Medal twice, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Red House Children’s Book Award. Watch out for his daring new YA novel More Than This, forthcoming later this year from Walker Books.
Erin O’Connor was born in 1978 in Walsall. Erin’s big break came during a shoot in Brazil, with photographer David Sims and hairdresser Guido, when she decided to get her hair cut off. She first modelled for Juergen Teller in a 1996 issue of i-D and she was described as ‘freak chic’ – but went on to model for most of the luxury brands, top photographers, always at couture and, in 2007, the revamped Marks & Spencer. Swan-like, porcelain-skinned, hard-working, and tall (6ft 4in in heels). ‘She isn’t only a model,’ Jean Paul Gaultier famously raved, ‘she is quite art. She is like theatre. She is extraordinary inspiration. I should love to be with her every day.’
The illustrator David Downtown made her his muse.
Chris O’Dowd is from Roscommon, Ireland. He studied politics at Dublin University before training at LAMDA.Chris is well known for his starring role in Bridesmaids opposite Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. For his role in the film, Chris was nominated for a BAFTA ‘Rising Star Award’, a Screen Actor’s Guild Award for ‘Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture’ and won the Irish Film and Television Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor – Film’. Chris has also recently starred in Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires, Judd Apatow’s This Is 40 and Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, and is currently starring in the hit HBO series Family Tree.
Chris wrote and produced an award-winning TV series based on his childhood titled Moone Boy. Having premiered on Sky One in the UK and Hulu, the show has been picked up for a third season, and in addition to writing and producing, Chris will direct all the upcoming episodes. Chris’s other upcoming features include John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary opposite Kelly Reilly and Brendan Gleeson and James Griffiths’ Cuban Fury opposite Nick Frost and Rashida Jones.
Chris’s television credits include starring in the cult comedy series The It Crowd for Channel 4 and the critically acclaimed series Crimson Petal & The White for the BBC.
Dermot O’Leary spends his Saturday nights hosting ITV1’s The X Factor and, to the sometime annoyance of his family, who occasionally like to see him on a weekend, has done since 2007. His specialist subjects include scalding judges, hugging, and the occasional dance. He hosted The X Factor following his success as host of Big Brother’s Little Brother on E4. Dermot established the hugely successful T4 for Channel 4.
He spends his Saturday afternoons presenting The Dermot O’Leary Show on BBC Radio 2 (a mix of indie and interviews), winning the Sony Radio Award for The Best Music Programme in 2008, 2010 and recently in 2013.
2010 saw Dermot chairing BBC Three political debate First Time Voters Question Time and Dermot Meets, where he interviewed David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg.
He owns his own production company (Ora et Labora), is a very active partner in his fish restaurant in Brighton (Fishy Fishy), and is a keen Arsenal fan … for his sins in a previous life.
Dawn O’Porter is a broadcaster and print journalist who lives in London with her husband Chris, cat Lilu and dog Potato. She has made numerous documentaries about all sorts of things, including polygamy, childbirth, geishas, body image, breast cancer and even the movie Dirty Dancing.
Dawn has written for many UK newspapers and magazines including Grazia and Stylist and she is currently a columnist for Glamour magazine. Her first fictional novel, Paper Aeroplanes, was published by Hot Key Books in 2013. Although Dawn lives in London she spends a lot of time in LA and travels a lot. She is obsessed with cats, mad about dogs, has an addiction to vintage dresses and she loves food.
Feminist writers Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter founded the online magazine The Vagenda in January 2012. Since then, The Vagenda has published bylined, anonymous and editorial articles on topics ranging from cosmetic surgery and pop songs, to the ‘cupcake conspiracy’ and Republicans. Humorous and topical with a searing, critical streak, The Vagenda exposes the mainstream female press for its insidious elements – and its frequent ridiculousness.
Victoria White is the editor of young women’s fashion magazine, Company. She has won awards for doing this. It is a dream job. She gets to see all the clothes the high street has to offer six months before they go into store. She gets to go to cool music events and found herself backstage with One Direction when they won a BRIT Award. She’s been a guest judge on seven series of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model (which is where she first met Dawn O’Porter seven years ago – long story). Oh, and this year she played herself in two episodes of Hollyoaks (badly). She tweets and instagrams as @companyedvic and she has her own blog, www.weboughtafrenchhouse.com about her ‘other’ life renovating property in south-west France. She has two boys, Arthur, aged ten and Sebastian, aged six. They all live with her husband Peter in a large, in need of renovation, house in south-east London. So at weekends, when not watching Million Pound Drop or shopping at Westfield Stratford, she can be found painting and decorating. She is really quite tired.
Laura Whitmore is one of the most in-demand young presenters currently working in television. Combining her love of music, people and fashion, she has covered all the major festivals both here and internationally and interviewed the likes of Coldplay, Justin Bieber and more recently Michael Caine. Laura’s recent TV credits include: I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here 2011, The Brits 2012 (ITV2), MTV European Music Awards 2012.
Laura has always been a huge music fan and loves to get behind the decks to DJ whenever possible. She’s brought her rock ’n’ roll set to a number of high-end fashion, branded and international events.
Matt Whyman is the bestselling author of several novels and comic memoirs. His books include Pig in the Middle, Walking with Sausage Dogs, Boy Kills Man and The Savages. Matt is married with four children and lives in West Sussex.
Lara Williamson was born and studied in Northern Ireland. After graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fashion Design she moved to London and was Beauty Editor for J17 where she wrote and styled shoots, both in Britain and foreign locations.
Lara won The Jasmine Awards for Best Article in a Youth Title, and received an Honorary Mention in Undiscovered Voices 2012. Lara lives in London with her family.
Claudia Winkleman works in television and radio. She talks mostly about films, books, the foxtrot and theatre. She has three children and is fond of owls.
Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Birmingham, England. He spent some of his early years in Jamaica, his parents’ homeland, where he was strongly influenced by Jamaican folk music. Back in England, he had a difficult school life. He enrolled in adult education to learn how to read and write and then discovered he was dyslexic.
Since the age of twenty-two, he’s been writing, publishing and mostly ‘performing’ his poetry in tours all over the world. Zephaniah writes gritty, realistic novels about the lives of teenagers, aimed at adults as much as they are at teenagers. He believes that for the most part teenagers know what they are going through, but adults need reminding; they have short memories. He now devotes much of his time to visiting schools, prisons, universities and teacher training centres. Zephaniah believes that working with human rights groups, animal rights groups and other political organisations means that he will never lack subject matter.