Judges for the Novel category
Sarah Clarke
Co-owner, The Torbay Bookshop
Sarah started her publishing career as a secretary at Oxford University Press and after a year was sent travelling around the country as a Sales Representative selling the OUP list into bookshops and University campuses.
After a career break of five years to have two children, she moved to Devon and in 1993 opened the Torbay Bookshop in Paignton with husband Matthew. The lively and innovative bookshop has flourished ever since and, in addition to several local awards, was the winner of Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2006 and has been shortlisted for every year since then.
Sarah also chooses and reviews books for The Bookseller magazine every month for 'Booksellers Choice'.
Rebecca Jones
Arts Correspondent, BBC
Rebecca Jones is the BBC's Arts Correspondent, a post she has held for seven years. During her career at the BBC, she has worked as a foreign correspondent, based in Berlin, and as a presenter on the BBC News Channel. She has also worked in regional television, presenting the nightly news programme at Anglia.
Rebecca read history at Somerville College, Oxford and is married with one son.
Neil Pearson
Actor and writer
Neil Pearson is an actor, bibliophile and the author of Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press.
He lives in London.
Judges for the First Novel category
Nikki Bedi
BBC Asian Network
Born in Aylesbury to an Indian father and an English mother, Nikki began her career working in Mumbai as both a stage and television actress, where she had the opportunity of working with some of India's finest directors. Spotted by the UK's Channel 4, Nikki hosted Bombay Chat, an on-location celebrity talk show, the success of which led STAR TV to give her a prime time slot for Nikki Tonight, which quickly proved to be Asia's most widely viewed and controversial talkshow.
After spending time living and working in Los Angeles, Nikki returned to the UK to become the face of Universal's film channel The Studio. She then went on to present and produce the live movie show, Worldwide Screen, on NOW TV. While continuing her work on television, Nikki began pursuing a career in radio, initially by launching a new weekend morning show on the BBC Asian Network, Hot Breakfast, before taking over the station's DriveTime slot.
Nikki currently presents the arts, culture and entertainment show on the BBC Asian Network simply called Nikki Bedi which focuses on books and authors, films and film directors and all things celebrity. She can be heard every weekday morning from 10.00am.
Sandra Howard
Author
Sandra Howard (nee Paul) was one of the leading photographic fashion models of the 1960s and 70s. She began doing freelance journalism while still modelling and continues to write for the press alongside writing novels, which is now a full-time career. Her three published titles are Glass Houses (2006), Ursula's Story (2007) and A Matter of Loyalty (2009) and she is presently working on a fourth. Sandra is a trustee of the drug rehabilitation charity Addaction and Vice-President of the National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy (NCYPE). She is married to the former British Conservative Party leader Michael Howard. They have three adult children and live in her husband's Kent constituency and London.
Matt Taylor
Owner, The Chepstow Bookshop
Matt Taylor is the owner of The Chepstow Bookshop in Monmouthshire, a thriving independent bookseller well known for its eclectic programme of author events which have totalled over sixty in the last year. He has spent over twelve years in the book industry, including five years as UK Marketing Manager for Borders and Books etc. An avid reader, he has judged The Guardian First Book Award and written book reviews for The Bookseller magazine.
He grew up in England and Germany and has an MA in Political Theory from The London School of Economics. He moved from London four years ago and now lives in Gloucestershire with his wife, two young children, dog, chickens, cat and goats.
Judges for the Biography category
Robert Lacey
Biographer and historian
Robert Lacey is a British historian noted for his original research, which gets him close to - and often living alongside - his subjects. He is the author of numerous international bestsellers.
After writing his first works of historical biography, Robert, Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh, Robert wrote Majesty, his pioneering biography of Queen Elizabeth II. Published in 1977, Majesty remains acknowledged as the definitive study of British monarchy. To research The Kingdom, a study of Saudi Arabia published in 1981, Robert and his wife Sandi took their family to live for eighteen months beside the Red Sea in Jeddah. In March 1984, the family moved again to live in Detroit, Michigan, to write Ford: the Men and the Machine, a subsequent bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Robert's other books include biographies of the gangster Meyer Lansky, Princess Grace of Monaco and a study of Sotheby's auction house.
Ben Macintyre
Writer and journalist
Ben Macintyre has written a weekly column in The Times since 1998 on history, espionage, art, politics and foreign affairs. Before taking up his current post as Writer at Large and Associate Editor on the newspaper, he was the editor of The Times Weekend Review, a weekly supplement covering the arts and literature. He joined the newspaper in 1992 as New York Correspondent, and went on to become Paris Bureau Chief and then US Editor, based in Washington, before returning to the UK in 2002 as parliamentary sketch-writer.
He is the author of six non-fiction history books, including the bestselling A Foreign Field (2001). Agent Zigzag, published by Bloomsbury in January 2007, has sold more than 100,000 copies and spent four weeks in The Sunday Times bestseller list top ten. It was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the National Book Awards, and has recently been optioned by New Line Cinema. This year he published For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, to accompany the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum of the same name. He is currently working on a book about a wartime deception plan to be published next year. Ben Macintyre is married to the writer and journalist Kate Muir. They have three children and live in Hampstead.
Caroline Mileham
Head of Books, PLAY.com
Caroline Mileham started her book career as a Saturday girl at the Preston branch of Waterstone's whilst she was at Lancaster University studying English & Linguistics. After leaving university, she took a full-time role at Waterstone's Preston as children's bookseller. She moved up to Assistant Manager at the Bury store, before relocating to Head Office where she helped set up the buying team and managed campaign promotions such as the Waterstone's 3 for 2. Her final role at Waterstone's was as Fiction and Non-Fiction Manager. From there Caroline moved to Borders, in 2006, as Head of Books. She spent two years in the role before joining Play.com in October 2008 as Head of Books. Caroline currently lives in the Hertfordshire countryside.
Judges for the Poetry category
Tom Fleming
Deputy Editor, Literary Review
Tom Fleming is Deputy Editor of Literary Review. He has written for a number of publications including The Observer, The Spectator, New Statesman and the TLS.
Chloe Garner
Director, Ledbury Poetry Festival
Chloe is the Director of the Ledbury Poetry Festival, which is "the largest of its kind in the UK and also the most energised, giving a real sense of poetry as an important living, contemporary literary form" (The Guardian, 2009). The Festival takes place every year in July and also runs an influential poetry competition that is renowned for spotting new talent first. Chloe started her career at The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage and previously worked with Diana Reich on The Charleston Festival and Small Wonder: The Short Story Festival.
Sophie Hannah
Crime Fiction writer and poet
As well as writing psychological thrillers, Sophie Hannah is a bestselling poet and an award-winning short story writer. She regularly performs her poetry live to audiences nationwide and abroad and her fifth collection of poetry, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 TS Eliot Award. She won first prize in the Daphne du Maurier Festival Short Story competition for her psychological suspense story The Octopus Nest. All four of her novels have been bought by Hat Trick Productions who are developing a series for ITV1. Sophie lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and two children.
Judges for the Children's Book category
William Nicolson
Writer
William Nicholson's career started at the BBC, where he worked as a documentary film-maker. His ambition to write was channelled into television drama and his plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story, both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award in their year. His first play, an adaptation of Shadowlands for the stage, was Evening Standard Best Play of 1990, and went on to a Tony Award-winning run on Broadway, and he was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film version. Since then he has written more films including Gladiator (as co-writer), for which he received a second Oscar nomination, and Elizabeth: the Golden Age. He has written and directed his own film, Firelight, and three further stage plays. His novel for older children, The Wind Singer, won the Smarties Prize Gold Award on publication in 2000, and the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award in 2001. Its sequel, Slaves of the Mastery, was published in May 2001, and the final volume in the trilogy, Firesong, in May 2002. The trilogy has been sold in every major foreign market, from the US to China. His novels for adults include The Society of Others (April 2004) and The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (May 2009). He lives in Sussex with his wife Virginia and their three children.
Fiona Phillips
Broadcaster and journalist
Fiona Phillips is one of the leading lights of British television. After 12 years as the lead presenter on GMTV, she left at the end of 2008 to focus on other television projects. Her first assignment was a very personal and emotional film: Mum, Dad, Alzheimer's and Me for Channel 4 as part of their highly-acclaimed Dispatches series. Independent radio is where she began her career and it wasn't long before she made the move into television, rapidly being promoted from regional programming to a full-time reporter for Sky News. She soon became Sky's Entertainment Editor, producing, reporting and presenting Sky News Entertainment output. After moving to Los Angeles, Fiona became the entertainment correspondent for GMTV. For over two years, she covered some of the biggest celebrity stories including the OJ Simpson trial and the Oscars.
As a journalist, Fiona writes a weekly column for The Mirror and has her own Agony Aunt column for New Magazine each week. Fiona is heavily involved in a number of charities. She is an Ambassador for Age UK and a Patron of the Alzheimer's Society, Barnados, Richard House Hospice, the Down's Syndrome Society and the Mildmay Mission Hospital.
Sue Steel
Co-owner, Simply Books
Before Sue ever became a bookseller she worked in the public sector. Starting out as a teacher, she went on to develop and manage Learning Support Services in Manchester. She also spent a year working for a charity setting up a Pre-School Centre for children with autism.
Simply Books started over a bottle of wine Christmas 2001 and nine months later the doors opened. Sue wasn't planning to be involved on a day-to-day basis but she got hooked! Seven years on Simply Books is a thriving bookshop firmly established at the heart of the community.
Simply Books won Children's Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2006 and has just been awarded Independent Bookseller of the Year 2009. For the last three years Sue has written a monthly preview of children's books for 'The Bookseller'. She has appeared on Radio 4's You and Yours and is regularly invited on local radio to talk about books and promote the pleasure of reading.