Richard Williams was born in Birmingham in 1965, grew up in Frome, lived in London and is now back in Portsmouth. He has had some success with poems in magazines such as Acumen, Orbis, Envoi, Brittle Star, South, Frogmore Papers and Poetry Monthly.

Richard has been involved in local poetry organisation Tongues & Grooves since 2007. He helped with the selection of poems for the Portsmouth anthology and has organised and hosted a ‘Poetry of Exile’ evening.

Matt Wingett was born in Portsmouth the year after the Summer of Love. As he says of the timing: “Blast. Missed it again.” He grew up in the countryside outside of Portsmouth where he looked with mistrust on the island city. He has written episodes of ITV’s The Bill, articles for national newspapers and magazines, and once inadvertently won a national poetry award while helping a friend to cheat at her GCSE in English.

Matt has taught English in Egypt, worked as a hypnotist, saved a blindwoman from drowning in a river, occasionally dresses up as a World War 2 RAF officer, has never eaten blueberries and does not have a television. One of the items in that list is a lie.

Matt moved on to the island of Portsmouth in 2003 and no longer regards it with mistrust, but with real love and affection. He is writing a collection of stories all based around Portsmouth, several of which have been published on Amazon. His paperback “The Three Belles Star In We’ll Meet Again” is a vintage/supernatural tale of haunting set around Portsmouth.

Asked about his religious beliefs, he will inform you that Portsmouth is the best place in the world to live. That is not a lie.

For more information about Matt Wingett and his work go to: http://www.lifeisamazing.co.uk/about-me/

Sarah Cheverton is a feminist, a freelance writer, researcher and co-ordinator of the Portsmouth Writer Hub.

In addition to the day job, Sarah spends an increasing amount of time developing her freelance writing and journalism. As well as being a regular writer and co-editor for Womens Views on News, she is currently writing her first novel. Her writing has been featured in a number of publications over the years, including Vagina Magazine, ‘The Feminist Seventies’ (Raw Nerve Press) and Children and Young People Now. She will soon be published in a book of travel writing on Malaysia, ‘Sini Sana: Travels in Malaysia’.

These podcasts are based on a series of articles - 'Being Peace in Israel and Palestine' - about her experiences in Israel and Palestine as part of a unique and inspiring project called ‘Being Peace’, run by the equally unique and inspiring organisation Sanghaseva.

Sarah accompanied Sanghaseva on their latest Being Peace retreat, a highly structured yet incredibly flexible journey through the conflict that takes in a wide range of viewpoints, including Palestinian villagers and farmers, Israeli Defence Force soldiers, former Palestinian resistance fighters, Jewish settlers, Israeli residents and just a small number of the many people from a diverse range of organisations working for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

You can also follow Sarah on Twitter @Cheversar.

Portsmouth-born Mick Cooper was self-employed for most of his working life as a professional musician, and a professional photographer. He played music in many of the local clubs and pubs from the 1960s on and photographed many weddings in and around the City.

Tom Sykes was born in Portsmouth in 1979. He was educated at the LSE, the University of East Anglia and Goldsmiths College. He has travelled extensively in Europe and Asia and lived and worked as a journalist and teacher in India, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Tom’s writing has appeared in The Daily Telegraph and The London Magazine among many others. Since 2005, he has co-edited and contributed to 3 anthologies of hitchhiking stories that have sold 20,000 copies worldwide. The first, No Such Thing as a Free Ride? was serialized in The Times and named The Observer’s Travel Book of the Month. Tom won the Daily Telegraph’s ‘Just Back’ travel writing prize in 2011.

Tom is now pursuing PhD studies at Goldsmiths College and teaches creative writing and journalism at the University of Portsmouth. He has also lectured at the Universities of Liverpool and Malaysia. He is currently working on With Daisy in Manila, a memoir of his time surviving a Third World megacity with his then partner and four year old stepdaughter.

You can find out more about Tom at tomgsykes.wordpress.com.

Dee lives in the South of England in a home otherwise filled with males – husband, boys and pets – she writes to escape the testosterone.

She is the 2012 Writer in Residence for Portsmouth Libraries and writes using the name D.J. Kirkby and Dee Kirkby. Dee is the author of Without Alice, My Dream of You, My Mini Midwife and Realand (book 1 of The Portal Series for children).

When not otherwise occupied, Dee can be found chatting to people on Twitter and Facebook, and adding photos on Pintrest.

Dee is a registered midwifery lecturer, teaching midwifery two days per week, and a registered public health practitioner, working three days per week for her local Public Health Department. At the age of 40, she was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger syndrome, in addition to dyslexia and dyspraxia (which definitely explains a lot of things including why she can’t read a tube map).

Find out more about DJ Kirkby at http://djkirkby.co.uk.

William Sutton is a novelist, musician and Latin teacher living in Southsea. His historical mystery ‘The Worms of Euston Square’ unearths the stink beneath the cobblestones of Victorian London. ‘The Maestro of Assassins’ is due out in 2013, from which these podcasts are extracted.

William has acted in the longest play in the world, written for The Times, and played cricket for Brazil. His plays have appeared on radio and stage. He writes for magazines about language, music and futurology, and plays accordion with chansonnier Philip Jeays.

For much more information on William go to http://www.william-sutton.co.uk.

Charlotte Comley has had non-fiction work published in The Green Parent, Yours, Take a Break, Grow It and The Motion Online. She placed Highly Commended in The Winchester’s Writing Conference and has also won first place in the Darwin Evolutions Sci-Fi competition. Charlotte was a script writer and editor on Express FM Conway Street. One of her stories was taken up by The White Rabbit Theatre Group and performed in Winchester.

Charlotte run a writers group called The Writers@Lovedean and each year publishes an anthology to showcase the writers’ work. She blogs regularly at http://aimingforapublishingdeal.blogspot.co.uk.

Richard Williams was born in Birmingham in 1965, grew up in Frome, lived in London and is now back in Portsmouth. He has had some success with poems in magazines such as Acumen, Orbis, Envoi, Brittle Star, South, Frogmore Papers and Poetry Monthly.

Richard has been involved in local poetry organisation Tongues & Grooves since 2007. He helped with the selection of poems for the Portsmouth anthology and has organised and hosted a ‘Poetry of Exile’ evening.

Matt Wingett was born in Portsmouth the year after the Summer of Love. As he says of the timing: “Blast. Missed it again.” He grew up in the countryside outside of Portsmouth where he looked with mistrust on the island city. He has written episodes of ITV’s The Bill, articles for national newspapers and magazines, and once inadvertently won a national poetry award while helping a friend to cheat at her GCSE in English.

Matt has taught English in Egypt, worked as a hypnotist, saved a blindwoman from drowning in a river, occasionally dresses up as a World War 2 RAF officer, has never eaten blueberries and does not have a television. One of the items in that list is a lie.

Matt moved on to the island of Portsmouth in 2003 and no longer regards it with mistrust, but with real love and affection. He is writing a collection of stories all based around Portsmouth, several of which have been published on Amazon. His paperback “The Three Belles Star In We’ll Meet Again” is a vintage/supernatural tale of haunting set around Portsmouth.

Asked about his religious beliefs, he will inform you that Portsmouth is the best place in the world to live. That is not a lie.

For more information about Matt Wingett and his work go to: http://www.lifeisamazing.co.uk/about-me/