Ethel Williams was born in Cromer, Norfolk, in 1863 and was educated at Norwich High School and at Newnham College Cambridge, 1882-85, though she did not take a degree. She attended the London School of Medicine for Women where she took an MB in 1891 and an MD in 1895 before returning to Cambridge to study for a diploma in public health in 1899. After working as a medical officer at Clapham Maternity Hospital and at the Dispensary for Women and Children at Blackfriars, she went to Newcastle as the city’s first woman doctor, and in 1906 became the first woman to found a general medical practice in the city.

Having signed the Declaration in Favour of Women’s Suffrage in 1889, Williams served as secretary of the Newcastle Women’s Liberal Association and became president of the Newcastle and District Women’s Suffrage Society (NUWSS), and took part in the “Mud March” of February 1907. By 1915 she was chairman of the North-Eastern Federation of the NUWSS. During the war Ethel Williams joined the Union of Democratic Control, was secretary of the Newcastle Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, and was a founding member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, of which she was a secretary of the Newcastle branch in 1934. In 1917, Williams co-founded the Northern Women’s Hospital, before retiring in 1924. She died in 1948.

Charles Wilkinson's publications include The Snowman and Other Poems (IRON Press, 1978) and The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions, 2000). His stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990(Heinemann), Best English Short Stories 2 (Norton), Midwinter Mysteries (Little, Brown), Unthology (Unthank Books), London Magazine, and in genre magazines/anthologies such as Supernatural Tales, Horror Without Victims (Megazanthus Press), The Sea in Birmingham (TSFG), Rustblind and Silverbright (Eibonvale Press), Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Phantom Drift (USA) and Shadows & Tall Trees (Canada). Ag & Au , a pamphlet of his poems, is published by Flarestack Poets.

Michael Wilkin is a former trades union official at the Swan Hunter Shipyards and second-hand bookseller.

Edwin Wilcox was a newspaper correspondent in Russia during the 1917 Revolution and Civil War, during which he sent regular articles to The Daily Telegraph and contemporary journals. He had lived and worked as The Daily Telegraph correspondent in Berlin prior to his work in Russia, and returned to Berlin in 1919. He retired in 1940. Wilcox regularly contributed to contemporary journals on subjects related to Russia and Germany, amongst other subjects. He spoke Russian, German, and French, and also wrote articles in these languages. During the Second World War, Wilcox was consulted on the subject of teaching foreign languages to British soldiers. He also published two books: German Sea-Power, its rise, progress, and economic basis (1914) and Russia's Ruin (1919). In his later life Wilcox lived in Newcastle upon Tyne and died in 1947.

Susan Wicks has published three books of poetry with Bloodaxe Books: House of Tongues (2011), De-iced (2007), and Night Toad: New & Selected Poems (2003), which included a new collection with selections from three earlier books published by Faber: Singing Underwater, winner of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize; Open Diagnosis, which was one of the Poetry Society’s New Generation Poets titles; and The Clever Daughter, a Poetry Book Society Choice which was shortlisted for both T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. Both House of Tongues and Night Toad are Poetry Book Society Recommendations.

She has also published two novels, The Key (Faber, 1997) and Little Thing (Faber, 1998), a short memoir, Driving My Father (Faber, 1995), and a collection of short fiction, Roll Up for the Arabian Derby (Bluechrome, 2008). Her translation of Valérie Rouzeau’s Cold Spring in Winter (Arc, 2009) won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for French Translation, and was shortlisted for both the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize.

Born and raised in Kent, she lives in Tunbridge Wells, and is currently teaching at Goldsmiths’ College, London.