Gavin Bantock, was born in the UK and has lived in Japan since 1969, where he is a poet and director of drama. His major U.K. poetry awards include the Cardiff International and in1998 the Arvon. He has had ten books of poetry published, most recently SeaManShip (Anvil, 2003).

 Sebastian Barker lives in London, has been Chairman of the Poetry Society and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was editor of the London Magazine from 2002 to 2007. His many published collections include his selected poems Guarding the Border, (Enitharmon 1992) and The Erotics of God (Smokestack, 2005).

 Máire Breatnach is one of Ireland’s best known fiddle players, though she is equally accomplished on viola, whistle, piano, guitar and vocals. She has composed many TV and film scores, and of her five solo albums the most recent is Cranna Ceoil / In Full Measure.

 Heather Brett was born in Newfoundland, raised in Northern Ireland, and has lived in the South for 25 years. She has published three collections, of which Abigail Brown won the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize. She has been writer in residence in several counties and has edited over 30 anthologies.

 Paddy Bushe writes in both English and Irish. He has published many poetry collections, most recently The Nitpicking of Cranes (Dedalus, 2004) and To Ring in Silence: New and Selected Poems, (Dedalus, 2007). In 2006 he won both the Oireachtas prize for poetry and the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award.

 Paul Cummins lives in California, where his poems have been published widely in well known journals and magazines. Other writings include a booklet on poet Richard Wilbur and a biography, Dachau Song: The Twentieth Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper,  which has been translated into Chinese and German. 

 Hilary Davies is the author of three volumes of poetry from Enitharmon Press, most recently In a Valley of this Restless Mind (1997) and Imperium (2005). She won an Eric Gregory Award for Young Poets in 1983, and the TLS/Cheltenham Literary Festival Poetry Competition in 1987.

 Charles Evans is a published poet and award-winning playwright. A retired naval officer and college lecturer, he has travelled widely in Russia studying modern Russian drama and poetry. In 2005 he was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship for poetry, and in 2008 took second place in the UK National Poetry Competition.

 Rody Gorman lives in the Isle of Skye. He has published collections in English, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. His selected poems, Chernilo, were published by Coiscéim in 2006. He is editor of the annual Irish and Scottish Gaelic poetry anthology An Guth.

 Sue Hubbard has twice been winner of the London writers’ competition, and has published two books of poetry, a collection of short stories and a novel. Her poems The Idea of Islands (Occasional Press, Ireland) and her selected writings, Adventures in Art (Other Criteria) are published this spring.

 Lawrence Kessenich is from Massachusetts ,USA. He has had poems published in Cream City Review, Atlanta Review, Chronogram, Conclave, Ekleksographia, Ibbetson Street and Wilderness House. His chapbook Strange News was published by Pudding House Publications. He has also written novels, plays, short stories, children’s books and essays.

 Lewis MacKinnon lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he has been concerned with making Gaelic more than just an historic footnote ever since his grand uncle Dougald MacDougall, a native speaker, spoke Scots Gaelic to him as a teenager. He is now CEO of the Office of Gaelic Affairs.

 Aonghas Macneacail has published several collections of poems, mostly in Gaelic with parallel English translations, including Oideachadh Ceart/A Proper Schooling (1996) which won the 1997 Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. His latest book is a collection of Gaelic poems, Laoidh an Donais Oig/Hymn to a Young Demon (2007).

 Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is an Associate Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. She has published six collections of poetry. Her awards include the Patrick Kavanagh Prize. She is a founder editor of the literary review Cyphers, and a member of Aosdána.

 Helena Nolan’s poems and short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including “All Good Things Begin,” “The Stinging Fly” and “Let’s Be Alone Together”. She was awarded an MA in Creative Writing from UCD in 2008. Last year she was Highly Commended in the FISH poetry competition.

 Julie O’Callaghan was born in Chicago and has lived in Ireland since 1974. Her five collections of poetry include Tell Me This Is Normal (Bloodaxe, 2008), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. No Can Do (Bloodaxe, 2000) won the Michael Harnett Prize. She is a member of Aosdána.

 Dennis O’Driscoll’s eight books of poetry include New and Selected Poems (Anvil Press, 2004), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and Reality Check (2007).  Among his other publications are the Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations (2006) and Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (Faber and Faber, 2008). 

 Simon Ó Faoláin’s poetry has been published in many journals including Feasta, Cyphers, and Poetry Ireland Review. He won the Colm Cille Prize in 2008. His first collection, Anam Mhadra (Coiscéim) won the Glen Dimplex Irish Award and the Eithne and Rupert Strong Award in 2008.