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The Comedian Gary Delaney has written for a variety of TV and radio programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week, Russell Howard’s Good News, Jason Manford’s Comedy Rocks, and Radio 4’s The News Quiz. He received two Sonys for his work for Kerrang! Radio. Gary discusses the art of the ‘one-liner’, the importance of rhythm to jokes, and how ‘one-liners’ are often, in fact, ‘two-liners’.

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Fred D’Aguiar is Professor of English and Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies at Virginia Tech State University. His latest poetry collection is ’The Rose of Tolouse’ (Carcanet), which traces his own history through the histories of the places he has lived, and takes an elliptical approach to political issues. Fred’s also written plays and four novels; he won the Whitbread First Novel Award for ‘The Longest Memory’ (Pantheon).

Rosie Garland is an eclectic writer and performer, she has written five poetry collections, award-winning short stories, sung in the post-punk band The March Violets, and performed as her alter-ego Rosie Lugosi the Vampire Queen, cabaret chanteuse and mistress of ceremonies. Rosie Garland tells us a ‘Fairy Tale for Mid-Life’, in which a mirror is given a chance to say more than just ‘you are the fairest of them all’. Rosie’s debut novel is ‘The Palace of Curiosities’ (Harper Collins), the story of ‘The Lion-faced Girl’ and ‘The Flayed Man’ in the half-world of the Victorian freak show.

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Thomas Keneally is the Booker Prize winning author of ‘Schindler's Ark’, later adapted into Stephen Spielberg’s ‘Schindler's List. His latest novel is ‘The Daughters of Mars’ (Sceptre). Thomas tells Ian that the book was inspired by researching the journals of Australian nurses and stretcher-bearers during WWI.