Authors

Gavin Pretor-Pinney is a designer and writer. He founded the Cloud Appreciation Society in 2004 and is author of the bestseller The Cloudspotter’s Guide, described by the Financial Times as “eloquent and engaging”. Pretor-Pinney is also the co-founder of The Idler magazine, a bi-annual publication dedicated to the restoration of the art of loafing. At this year’s Port Eliot Festival, he’ll be telling us all about fire…

Alexander Waugh, grandson of Evelyn and son of Auberon, is a writer, publisher, cartoonist, presenter, producer and award-winning composer. His books include the best selling Classical Music: A new way of listening and the critically acclaimed Time (1999), God (2002) and Fathers and Sons (2004), a study of the male relations in his own family (also a BBC4 documentary).

Alain de Botton is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and public speaker, whose books have sold in millions around the world. Described as a “philosopher of everyday life”, he has covered subjects from art to architecture and from love to travel.

Kamila Shamsie’s first novel, In the City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and her second, Salt and Saffron, won her a place on Orange’s list of ‘21 Writers for the 21st Century’. In 1999 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature and in 2004 the Patras Bokhari Award – both awarded by the Pakistan Academy of Letters.

Hanif Kureishi CBE is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker. His screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette was nominated for an Academy Award and his book The Buddha of Suburbia won the 1990 Whitbread Award for best novel. His 2006 screenplay Venus received Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations and in 2008 he was appointed CBE. His latest book Something To Tell You – “a vital, teeming, panoramic, immersive novel” (Time Out) – was published last year.