Maura Dooley was born and grew up in the West Country, lived in Yorkshire for some years and now lives in London. She has published three collections of poetry, most recently 'Sound Barrier' (Bloodaxe 2002), and edited four anthologies and a collection of essays. She has worked for several different arts organisations, including the Arvon Foundation and the South Bank Centre London, and currently teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

Theo Dorgan is a poet, broadcaster on radio and television, translator, editor and documentary scriptwriter. His poetry collections include 'The Ordinary House of Love', 'Rosa Mundi' and 'Sappho's Daughter'. A prose book, 'Sailing For Home',  appeared from Penguin in October 2004. In 2005 he  published a translation of the Slovenian poet, Barbara Korun, 'Songs of Earth and Air'. His 'Jason and The Argonauts', to music by Howard Goodall, was commissioned by and premiered in the Royal Albert Hall in 2004.

Paula Meehan was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Eastern Washington University. She has published five collections of poetry and numerous stage and radio  plays. She has been the recipient of many awards, among them the Butler Award for Poetry from the Irish American Cultural Institute, the Marten Toonder Award for Literature, and the Denis Devlin Memorial Award for her most recent collection of poems, Dharmakaya. She is a member of Aosdána.

Aonghas Macneacail , a native Gaelic speaker, was born in the Isle of Skye. He is a poet and songwriter in both Gaelic and English, a journalist, broadcaster and translator. He is experienced performer of his own work, and his poetry has taken him as far afield as Japan, North America, the Arctic Circle, the Capitol in Rome, the Holy Land, various other European countries, and most corners of Ireland. His third collection, Oideachadh Ceart (A Proper Schooling), gained the Scottish Writer of the Year Award, 1997.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is Ireland’s most widely known Gaelic poet. She was until recently Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University, Trinity College and UCD, in succession to John Montague. Born in England, her linguistic and imaginative grounding was in Corca Dhuibhne in West Kerry, whose landscape, folklore and literature has been a wellspring for her. Widely admired and translated by many of Ireland’s most famous contemporary poets, she has read her poetry all over both the western and eastern worlds.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born in the village of Moyvane, Co. Kerry where he still lives. He is the author of forty books, including collections of poetry in English and Irish as well as several collections of verse for children. He has translated extensively from Irish and has edited a number of anthologies. He has been described as "the best contemporary, traditional, popular poet in English" in Booklist (US), "a wonderful poet" in the Guardian (UK) and "one of Ireland's favourite poets" in Books Ireland.