Roger McGough was a member of the group Scaffold in the 1960s when he contributed poems to the Penguin title The Mersey Sound, which has since sold over a million copies. He presents Poetry Please on Radio 4 and is President of the Poetry Society. He was honoured with a CBE in 2005 for services to literature.
Chris Riddell, Waterstones Children's Laureate 2015-2017, is the creator of an extraordinary range of books which have won awards including the UNESCO Prize, the Greenaway Medal and the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration. His work includes the highly-acclaimed Ottoline titles and the 2013 Costa Children's Book Award-winning Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse. Chris has also collaborated with high-profile figures such as Neil Gaiman and Paul Stewart, and is a renowned political cartoonist.