Andrew James Butcher, better known as A.J. Butcher, is an English writer best known for the futuristic teen spy series, Spy High. Butcher taught English at both Poole Grammar School and Parkstone Grammar School, in Poole, Dorset, and currently teaches at Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth, Dorset. He took a sabbatical from his teaching career to write Spy High Series Two. He says he has been influenced by Charles Dickens and George Orwell, but that Stan Lee, creator of many of Marvel Comics' super-heroes, is his biggest inspirational figure.
Archibald Joseph Cronin, known as A. J. Cronin, was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel is The Citadel (1937), about a Scottish doctor who serves in a Welsh mining village before achieving success in London, where he becomes disillusioned about the venality and incompetence of some doctors. Cronin knew both areas, as a medical inspector of mines and as a doctor in Harley Street. The book exposed unfairness and malpractice in British medicine and helped to inspire the National Health Service. The Stars Look Down, set in the North East of England, is another of his best-selling novels inspired by his work among miners. Both novels have been filmed, as have Hatter's Castle, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years. His 1935 novella Country Doctor inspired a long-running BBC radio and TV series, Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1962–1971), set in the 1920s. There was a follow-up series in 1993–1996.
Daniel Mallory is an American author who writes crime fiction under the name A. J. Finn. His 2018 novel The Woman in the Window was a strong commercial success, which enjoyed positive reviews. The novel has been translated into more than 40 languages, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. It debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list and the Times (UK) list. The Woman in the Window was adapted into a feature film of the same name, directed by Joe Wright and featuring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore and Gary Oldman. It also served as an inspiration for the 2022 Netflix series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window featuring Kristen Bell. Mallory is openly gay and has spoken about his struggles with bipolar depressive disorder. Mallory’s much-anticipated second novel, End of Story, will be published in February 2024. It is a thriller set in San Francisco about a young woman writing the biography of a celebrated crime writer.
Arthur John Langguth was an American author, journalist and educator, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was professor of the Annenberg School for Communications School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. Langguth was the author of several dark, satirical novels, a biography of the English short story master Saki, and lively histories of the Trail of Tears, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, Afro-Brazilian religion in Brazil and the United States, the Vietnam War, the political life of Julius Caesar and U.S. involvement with torture in Latin America.
A graduate of Harvard College, Langguth was South East Asian correspondent and Saigon bureau chief for The New York Times during the Vietnam war, using the byline "Jack Langguth". He also wrote and reported for Look Magazine in Washington, DC and The Valley Times in Los Angeles, California. Langguth joined the journalism faculty at USC in 1976. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976, and received the Freedom Forum Award, honoring the nation's top journalism educators, in 2001. He retired from active teaching at USC in 2003.
Alan John Percivale Taylor was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his television lectures. His combination of academic rigour and popular appeal led the historian Richard Overy to describe him as "the Macaulay of our age". In a 2011 poll by History Today magazine, he was named the fourth most important historian of the previous 60 years.
Philip Nicholson, known by his pen name A. J. Quinnell, was an English thriller novelist. He is best known for his novel Man on Fire, which has been adapted to film twice, most recently in 2004 featuring Denzel Washington. Later in life he spent much of his time in Gozo, Malta, where he died.
A. James Barnes is an American attorney who served in several senior management positions at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and later as a dean and professor at Indiana University Bloomington (IU).
Audrey Lilian Barker FRSL was an English novelist and short story writer. She was born in St Pauls Cray, Kent and brought up in Beckenham. She was an only child. When Barker turned 16, her father sent her to work at a clockmaking firm, as he did not approve of her seeking further education. She worked in the editorial office of Amalgamated Press, as publisher's reader for Cresset Press, and at the BBC as a subeditor. During her lifetime, she published ten collections of short stories and eleven novels, one of which - John Brown's Body - was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1970. She was also the winner of the inaugural Somerset Maugham Prize in 1947, with her collection of short stories called Innocents. In 1962, Barker won the Cheltenham literary festival award. Barker was also elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1970. Barker's work often included themes such as love, good vs. evil, youth vs. experience, and explored children as both the catalyst and victims of events. While not commercially successful during her lifetime, her writing has been well regarded by the literary critics and other authors over time.
