Harold 'Hal' Lister was a glaciologist, explorer and academic whose career included participation in many notable polar expeditions and academic research into glacial recession in both North and South polar regions. Born in 1921, Lister served in both the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy during World War 2, afterwards, he attended King's College (later Newcastle University) and studied Pure Science. He then went on to undertake a PhD at Cambridge University. While there he also participated in several notable polar expeditions including the British North Greenland Expedition (1952-1954). From the late 1950s until his retirement in the late 1980s Lister worked as an academic in the Geography Department at Newcastle University, leading teaching and research on glaciology, and leading field trips to arctic regions.

S.J. Litherland's work encompasses love, politics, loss, and philosophy. She has six published collections of poetry, The Long Interval (Bloodaxe 1986), Flowers of Fever (Iron Press 1992), The Apple Exchange (Flambard 1999), The Work of the Wind (Flambard 2006), The Homage (Iron Press 2006) and The Absolute Bonus of Rain (Flambard 2010).

Her highly praised The Work of the Wind is a four-part book about her years with the poet Barry MacSweeney and The Homage is a sequence of poems about cricket and former England captain Nasser Hussain which was nominated for Cricket Book of the Year. Her work has appeared in various anthologies, most notably in New Women Poets (Bloodaxe 1993), Forward Book of Poetry 2001 and North by North East (Iron 2006). She was co-editor of The Poetry of Perestroika (Iron) and has edited many books. She has received two Northern Writers' Awards, 1994, 2000. Originally from Warwickshire, she has lived in Durham City since 1965, bringing up a son and daughter and working as a journalist (as Jackie Levitas). Now a part-time tutor and mentor in creative writing, she is also a founding member of Vane Women writers collective and press. She has four grandsons.