Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was born in London, the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. From 1915 when she published her first novel, The Voyage Out, Woolf maintained an astonishing output of fiction, literary criticism, essays, and biography. In 1912 she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917 they founded the Hogarth Press. Woolf suffered a series of mental breakdowns throughout her life, and on March 28, 1941, she committed suicide.

Ali Smith is the author of many works of fiction, including the novel Hotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize as well as winning the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award. The Accidental won the Whitbread Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her story collections include Free Love, which won a Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award.

Francesca Wade has written for publications including the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, New Statesman, and Prospect. She is editor of The White Review and a winner of the Biographers' Club Tony Lothian Prize. She lives in London.