Simon Armitage's Selected Poems appeared in 2001, and in 2007 he published a highly praised translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He has written two volumes of memoir about living in the north for Penguin: All Points North and Gig. He lives in Huddersfield.

Tim Dee is a BBC radio producer based in Bristol. He has written a highly acclaimed memoir of his birdwatching life, The Running Sky.